Having a sudden reason to push shadow software patches to nearly every device and server in the world...I wonder who would benefit from that...
Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
681–690 of 702 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Intel has no good hardware or microcode mitigation for spectre-like attacks I was under the impression that for at least one category of attack, there is no hardware mitigation possible because it's a fundamental problem with the x86-64 design. Fixing it would require building a chip that uses some other architecture. Is that not the case?
That's not exactly true. You could build an x86-64 chip without these flaws, but it would require a new internal architecture with a lot more silicon. One obvious approach would be to have two caches per core. Speculative execution would use a different cache than normal execution. If the speculative action is committed to, it swaps which cache is the normal one and which is the speculative one. Then you'd also need…
I'm no chip designer, but maybe a 'small' speculation cache which allows quick moving to the real caches might be better just in terms of less cache needs. If there's not enough space then you can't speculate farther, and that's that.
Of course, that'd probably need more complex logic to manage this new cache, which makes things more difficult. Then again, not sure how two caches interacts with potential speculation across multiple branches (does Intel even do that?)
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling people morons isn't being confrontational. It's being an asshole.
Depends. If people are morons, you can call them like that and not be an asshole, just honest. Don't know about this case, though ...
Even being right, you can still be a jerk.
Though being wrong and a jerk is definitely worse in a sense, personally I think that attitudes that qualify you as being a jerk only marginally help you in being honest.
The basic idea is that even if someone is a moron, calling them a moron isn't really.... doing much. Very little information, and a lot of rudeness. Telling them that their patch isn't mergable has more info and less raw rudeness IMO
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flushing the cache after every branch misprediction would probably make branch prediction a net loss in performance.
Well not all caches, just the part tagged with the mispredicted branch
But that'd still be vulnerable.
The issue isn't that you can read whatever was in/got brought into cache, the issue is that you can tell which part of the cache got evicted and infer values based on that.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just contradicted yourself.
Not really. There is a fix. It is not "proper" because after implementing it, few businesses and people will continue to buy Intel products
That doesn't mean it's an improper fix. Intel's corporate inability to handle potential fallout does not change that the right/proper fix is to enable security by default.
The only improper thing is that we need this fix at all, but that bridge has been crossed, burned, and dropped into the Mariana Trench, so no going back now.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. One could always hope someone took that tone with Linus. That'd be funny.
Someone did take that tone with him. Granted, it was Linus himself, but still, he is someone and he did it. "In fact, it seems to be such a fundamental bug that I suspect I'm entirely wrong, and full of shit. So it's an interesting and not _obviously_ incorrect theory, but I suspect I must be missing something." [1] And it is funny. And I respect that he is equally blunt when speaking of himself. [1] http://lkml.iu.e…
My favorite quote:
"I'm an egotistical bastard, so I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git." [1]
[1] https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/129776/after_controve...
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They can buy old processors without the fix. Tell me where you could buy old processors in sufficient quantity today and please explain how a modern motherboard with sufficient RAM would hold such an old processor?
Good question! I found this site that's selling plenty of older Intel processors: https://www.intel.com/buy/us/en/catalog/components/boxedproc... If that's not old enough, there's also this: https://ark.intel.com/products/series/79666/Legacy-Intel-Cor... But if you want a processor without this fix, then you're in luck: from what I understand, all modern Intel processors don't have this fix yet. And they're very well…
That legacy site only goes to Q1'06. But Spectre/Meltdown affect those and even older CPUs.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what made you think all these things you're writing. By abuse I simply meant 'verbal abuse'. You yourself first apply hyperbolic meaning to the word, and then say it's not that. The whole argument is kind of strange to me. And when did showing dictionary meaning of the dictionary word I'm using start to be a fallacy of argument?
Either you are trolling, or naive into the Politically Correct Social Justice world around you if you do not understand the point of view I am speaking against. World where people are fired from their jobs because they tell a joke someone finds offensive, I world where you are just one twit or one overheard conversation away from the outrage mob ruining your life..
I think others have clearly communicated who they think is the troll by flagging.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#689I'm pushing great videos over at youtube! Come by and be part of it!
https://youtu.be/HG-VClgOUCY
Like, Comment and Subscribe for more great comps!
5ive Minutes Of Fame
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is the top comment on this about engineering culture?! Linus is valuable precisely because he occasionally d-slaps people around, waking them up, even when what he says may be factually wrong, and reminding them the at the core the tech must be sane, f people and their feelings! Yeah, it's good to have a 1 in 1000 brilliant people being aholes because it keeps the culture balanced. We need a dose of rascality, an…
Because, as the comment says, he is wrong . He may be technically correct in his assessment of the quality of the patches (I lack the necessary knowledge to even begin to assess it), but he does not go about explaining this in a sensible manner. He has never fostered a collaborative, inclusive atmosphere around the kernel. If anybody at my workplace talked to a collaborator in that way they'd be in a chat with their…
I vehemently disagree for one very straightforward reason: this matter is far too important to prioritise civility over outcomes. This particular matter needs sunlight, and Torvalds' response is giving it a lot of sunlight.
An "inclusive atmosphere" is irrelevant. Pointless. I'd personally say it's counter-productive. There's no scenario where Torvalds' response is going to result in Intel abandoning the Linux ecosystem. The engineers at Intel can now go back to their managers and say "okay, we tried cutting corners and it didn't work."