Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.” • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#531

Post by jnordwick » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #504

shakna wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid I still don't understand you. > JavaScript appears to not be a possible attack vector. So now we're just worried about already had access to run a native binary. All the major browsers have pushed patches, to close this, because it was a gaping hole. You're only not worried, because they've already fixed it. (Well, when I say major browsers, I haven't seen or heard anything from Microsoft's Chakra engine.)…

I'm not sure I understand his position on Spectre, but he's been pretty clear that for the most part he's been talking about Meltdown. Honestly I'm not familiar with how much of a perf hit the Meltdown patch alone causes, because I always see the bad perf numbers with their combination, but I suspect it's bad. Since Meltdown has no JS exploit, there's no reason to worry about JS. Given that browser exploits are out o…

I think it would be useful to write up a technical article on the cache side channel attack and how it is used by meltdown and specte and their different methods of exploit.

Maybe that would shed some light on who needs to worry and why.

I'm surprised the js jit writers have escaped with so little blame for Spectre since in the end it is basically just a process reading its own address space (I'm actually surprised more of these vulnerabilities don't exist since things like proc/dev/run are ripe for abuse).

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#532

Post by dsmithatx » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #266

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only spot, but also invests the energy in calling it out and explaining it. Which is why FOSS is so important. Can you imagine a world where Linux was closed source? You’d never have any insight into security patches, or these discussions.

Worse still, imagine a world where there was no Linux, and Oracle/Sun happened?

Linux is a kernel. An x86 Kernel running Gnu would have happened, and instead of Linux we would just be calling it something else.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#533

Post by adventured » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

quotheth wrote: post #529

jessaustin wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complaining about downvotes is never cool.

I'm not complaining. Merely expecting, given that this is not the first time I've posted something similar, and I felt the need to point out the double standard ahead of time this time. Downvote away! I just hope that the hypocrisy is clear. edit: Or there may be a totally non hypocritical reason to downvote me, which I would also encourage.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool!

And

> Downvote away!

You're being far over the top dramatic. It's unnecessary, your setup text did a perfectly fine job of making the argument. The two comments about downvoting detract from the substance.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#534

Post by quotheth » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #518

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

Is this public discussion an attempt to "zero in" on this problem? Does anyone outside of Intel "agree" with their current approach? This is a more reasonable situation for the Torvalds method than many others in which he uses it.

http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1801.2/05282.html

I would recommend reading this response.

Here are some great excerpts:

> That's why my initial idea, as implemented in this RFC patchset, was to stick with IBRS on Skylake, and use retpoline everywhere else. I'll give you "garbage patches", but they weren't being "just mindlessly sent around". If we're going to drop IBRS support and accept the caveats, then let's do it as a conscious decision having seen what it would look like, not just drop it quietly because poor Davey is too scared that Linus might shout at him again. :)

> If we can be done with the shouty part, I'd actually quite like to have a sensible discussion about when, if ever, we do IBPB on context switch (ptraceability and dumpable have both been suggested) and when, if ever, we set STIPB in userspace.

Those seem relevant to the thread. That said - it's really a good read for a technical overview of the issues and patches.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#535

Post by quotheth » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:25 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #533

quotheth wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not complaining. Merely expecting, given that this is not the first time I've posted something similar, and I felt the need to point out the double standard ahead of time this time. Downvote away! I just hope that the hypocrisy is clear. edit: Or there may be a totally non hypocritical reason to downvote me, which I would also encourage.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! And > Downvote away! You're being far over the top dramatic. It's unnecessary, your setup text did a perfectly fine job of making the argument. The two comments about downvoting detract from the substance.

Is it over the top dramatic because of the exclamation mark?

Regardless, I feel it's important to point out a consistent hypocrisy I've witnessed and experienced. I think it's totally relevant and substantive.

edit: I have no desire to continue a metadiscussion on downvoting. I don't care about downvotes, the downvotes are a symptom of an entirely relevant issue; a community that has a ridiculous double standard for Linus. It was not an attempt to attract or prevent downvotes, or to discuss downvotes, or downvoting, or the culture of voting on HN.

I brought up downvotes as an example of the underlying issue. Clearly I did a poor job of that as it's led to a number of unrelated comments. I apologize for the clutter that a one-off comment on hypocrisy has caused.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#536

Post by jechamt » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

brynjolf wrote: post #220

watwut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) I am not American. I am also not talking about Torwalds, because as far as I know Linus did not explicitly demanded to be spoken to "politely" (afaik). 2.) Talking politely and talking directly are orthogonal categories. You can be impolite while not direct and also polite while being direct. 3.) An environment in which people just speak their minds and is ok with people being impolite when those feel like it is…

Boring. Heard it all before.

I've identified recursion in my reaction to this comment

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#537

Post by cromwellian » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #528

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

Counter point is that Google, like Intel, puts profits ahead of doing the right thing, selling out its users to advertisers with virtual impunity because those same users are addicted to the "free" stuff that Google gives them. So maybe we need more prominent people like Torvalds calling bullshit on them too. Finally we are starting to get such voices re Facebook, but even those not as honest as Torvalds. See the bas…

Even if I agreed with your sell-out criticism, what makes you think that hurling obscenities and insults at the executives would change that, vs a well written argument that the behavior is wrong and will have consequences that could harm the company?

Simply calling something garbage doesn't elicit change, our political system is the perfect example of that. It creates polarization which, due to human nature, makes can make people less motivated to work with you.

There's no even any evidence Intel did anything wrong. For decades, the market demanded performance, and VM based cloud computing was created long after speculative execution became an industry wide (not just Intel) optimization. The way we use CPUs has changed, our OSes have changed, the threat model has changed, and the sophistication of attacks has changed.

Future CPUs need to be designed from the ground up with modern cloud computing in mind and that's going to take 2 years at least given industry cycles. What do we do in the meantime with our current silicon is the question. Intel seems like they're trying to do the right think by handling failures in retpoline to offer full protection.

But maybe the conspiracies are right, but when has an accusation of some conspiratorial behavior ever been solved by people yelling and screaming moron and garbage?

It's just not the right way to perform an investigation IMHO.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#538

Post by adventured » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

quotheth wrote: post #535

adventured wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! And > Downvote away! You're being far over the top dramatic. It's unnecessary, your setup text did a perfectly fine job of making the argument. The two comments about downvoting detract from the substance.

Is it over the top dramatic because of the exclamation mark? Regardless, I feel it's important to point out a consistent hypocrisy I've witnessed and experienced. I think it's totally relevant and substantive. edit: I have no desire to continue a metadiscussion on downvoting. I don't care about downvotes, the downvotes are a symptom of an entirely relevant issue; a community that has a ridiculous double standard for…

Attempting to preempt downvotes is passive aggressive and adds nothing to the conversation; adding emphasis is doubling down on that mistake. It never actually works toward preventing downvotes, and instead attracts them. That makes it difficult to know whether the person is trying to lure downvotes on purpose for self-fulfilling prophecy reasons, or whether they actually believe it helps to try to preempt such.

If your argument has merit, it can stand alone. Responding to an avalanche of downvotes after the fact is the only thing I've seen on HN that makes sense. For example to try to counter a perception (eg if you think your argument is being taken incorrectly, or challenging the downvoters to discuss why they're downvoting; that can draw out more substance to a conversation).

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#539

Post by grzm » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

quotheth wrote: post #535

adventured wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! And > Downvote away! You're being far over the top dramatic. It's unnecessary, your setup text did a perfectly fine job of making the argument. The two comments about downvoting detract from the substance.

Is it over the top dramatic because of the exclamation mark? Regardless, I feel it's important to point out a consistent hypocrisy I've witnessed and experienced. I think it's totally relevant and substantive. edit: I have no desire to continue a metadiscussion on downvoting. I don't care about downvotes, the downvotes are a symptom of an entirely relevant issue; a community that has a ridiculous double standard for…

It's unnecessary and against the HN guidelines to comment on downvotes.

> "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That includes votes you're expecting. It distracts from the substance of what you're trying to say.

If you're concerned or thinking about downvotes when you're composing your comment, rethink how you can phrase it: if you think you're "speaking truth to power", "saying what must be said", or "pointing out hypocrisy", or something similar, you're already starting from a position of antagonism, real or imagined. People aren't going to respond to that well. Figure out — or at least attempt to find — a way to express what you're trying to get across in a way that'll be actually heard and understood by those you're trying to reach. What's actually going to make a difference?

If you think that they can't be reached or it's not worth the effort to try to do so, it's likely not worth the effort to comment at all. Given that you are participating on HN, please do make the effort. After all, that's one of the features HN members value: good, quality, constructive discussion.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#540

Post by quotheth » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:40 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #538

quotheth wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it over the top dramatic because of the exclamation mark? Regardless, I feel it's important to point out a consistent hypocrisy I've witnessed and experienced. I think it's totally relevant and substantive. edit: I have no desire to continue a metadiscussion on downvoting. I don't care about downvotes, the downvotes are a symptom of an entirely relevant issue; a community that has a ridiculous double standard for…

Attempting to preempt downvotes is passive aggressive and adds nothing to the conversation; adding emphasis is doubling down on that mistake. It never actually works toward preventing downvotes, and instead attracts them. That makes it difficult to know whether the person is trying to lure downvotes on purpose for self-fulfilling prophecy reasons, or whether they actually believe it helps to try to preempt such. If y…

See my edit: I don't want to continue this discussion as I have a fairly high up comment and I think this is just a bunch of clutter for the purpose of meta discussion. Talk about 'makes for boring reading'.