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OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

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Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#181

Post by ryacko »

red_phone wrote: post #105
throwaway2048 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minix only has a "huge install base" because of Intel ME firmware junk. Its not really meaningful, because the firmware could be pretty much any arbitrary OS and it would make zero difference to any end user. Tannenbaum himself didnt even know about Intel using MINIX in their ME firmware until recently, so that should show you how much relevance it has.

This is, at least in part, a result of MINIX using a highly permissive license. It’s easier to use an open source OS in relative secrecy if you aren’t required to release your modifications. And an organization with deep technical expertise like Intel would not likely need much assistance from the community for their implementation.

They could still require redistributions to include a copyright notice. I think the real issue is that Intel might engage in product binning without changing the source code.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#182

Post by yellowapple »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #92
tyingq wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tannenbaum perhaps somewhere in the middle. Huge install base, but little noteriety.

Minix only has a "huge install base" because of Intel ME firmware junk. Its not really meaningful, because the firmware could be pretty much any arbitrary OS and it would make zero difference to any end user. Tannenbaum himself didnt even know about Intel using MINIX in their ME firmware until recently, so that should show you how much relevance it has.

I'm still looking forward to the day when someone figures out how to install X11 on Intel ME, thus ushering in the Year of the MINIX Desktop rather instantaneously.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#183

Post by admax88q »

sharpneli wrote: post #86
Crinus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a "sane" default only in specific contexts though? (VMs). For a desktop PC that almost always runs a single heavy task (games, rendering, video encoding, etc) hyperthreading can be a day and night difference.

One must consider the potential damages that can happen when the default is wrong, as it’s nigh certain that people are going to be careless and not change it. If the desktop PC has wrong default the performance is bad. Still functional though. If in case of VM the default is wrong we will read another headline about how N million customers of $company got their personal data leaked.

I can't imagine a desktop PC that is unlikely to ever be used to browse the web. Spectre and simliar mitigations like disabling hyper threading are required to properly isolate javascript.

Defaults should be set for the lowest common denominator. A lay computer user shouldn't have to understand and make decisions upon things like this.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#184

Post by stock_toaster »

smhenderson wrote: post #156
dwheeler wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux came after the BSDs, so you would think the BSDs would have won. There are many reasons Linux-based systems are generally much more popular than the BSDs in the server and workstation spaces. Here's why I think that happened: * GPL vs. BSD license. Repeatedly someone in the BSD community had the bright idea of creating a proprietary OS based on a BSD. All their work was then not shared with the OSS BSD communit…

Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well Do you mean the SCO lawsuit against IBM? Because I would argue that 1) that happened long enough after Linux had established itself that people were too invested to be immediately scared off and 2) people put a lot of faith in IBM and there legal team to defend Linux. I think the community around Linux was able to…

> Do you mean the SCO lawsuit against IBM?

No, pretty sure the parent meant the the USL vs BSDi one. Though I disagree with the parent, and believe it _was_ impactful on BSD adoption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc.....

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#185

Post by toyg »

riffraff wrote: post #147
alxlaz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lacking in charisma hardly describes a person like Theo de Raadt. I've never met the man, but I doubt that someone who lacks charisma could have lead a dedicated, opinionated team through more than 40 releases (counting OpenBSD releases alone!), over a period of almost 25 years now, a team which not only developed a sturdy (if equally opinionated) operating system but also a bunch of highly successful projects like,…

the same applies to Stallman, if you consider that the FSF has been running for 34 years. But I believe grandparent didn't mean they lack charisma, but that they didn't have enough to swerve the general public.

With charisma, it’s not just quantity but quality. What appeals to some will repel others. De Raadt has qualities that entice him strongly to some, but are irksome to many, many more. See for example the trollish attitude to Comic Sans.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#186

Post by AnthonyMouse »

letstrynvm wrote: post #178
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with fines is that they happen after the fact and only if the worst actually happens. Tons of companies have totally abominable security and never get breached only out of dumb luck. So you'll still get lots of companies playing Russian Roulette where they make higher profits for ten years before they may or may not suffer a breach and get fined into oblivion, at which point they file for bankruptcy and s…

These large rich tech companies are really responsive to 'compliance' with the letter and spirit of laws that otherwise might cause severe losses. Look at, eg, gpdr, and google suddenly getting religion about you being able to mass-download your data. Yes you can legislate solutions to corporate behaviours.

"These large rich tech companies" are not the ones getting breached. The likes of Google and Microsoft take security seriously already. The problem is the likes of Equifax and Capital One and government databases with poor security that nonetheless contain all kinds of sensitive information that they shouldn't be aggregating and retaining to begin with and they certainly shouldn't be required by law to collect and store, even though they frequently are right now.

Also:

> and google suddenly getting religion about you being able to mass-download your data.

They had that even before the GDPR.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#187

Post by unilynx »

letstrynvm wrote: post #178
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with fines is that they happen after the fact and only if the worst actually happens. Tons of companies have totally abominable security and never get breached only out of dumb luck. So you'll still get lots of companies playing Russian Roulette where they make higher profits for ten years before they may or may not suffer a breach and get fined into oblivion, at which point they file for bankruptcy and s…

These large rich tech companies are really responsive to 'compliance' with the letter and spirit of laws that otherwise might cause severe losses. Look at, eg, gpdr, and google suddenly getting religion about you being able to mass-download your data. Yes you can legislate solutions to corporate behaviours.

Letter, yes. Spirit, I'm not so sure, it feels like Google and FB want to keep doing what they're already doing, and comply where they have to, instead of reconsidering whether they actually need all that data and need these dark patters for consent (which would be the spirit of GDPR)

And the smaller-than-FAANG companies... too many checklists, contracts and theater ("GDPR requires us to disable autofill on this form") and not enough actual rethinking what they're doing and if they should change their approach to data... so we'll still be seeing plenty of breaches where they shouldn't even be having the breached data

It'll probably be a decade before we see real effect from the GDPR...

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#189

Post by cpeterso »

693471 wrote: post #123
spamizbad wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent summary. I think by the late 90s BSD could operate cleanly alongside Windows but by then Linux had become the default "free" *nix choice. For me, I ran FreeBSD for about a year around 1999. I lasted about a week before breaking down and installing a GNU userspace. Excellent CLI ergonomics for the day. Linux had quite a few "easy to install" distros where, if your critical hardware was fully supported, yo…

No, by the late 90s BSD had dominated the hosting world because the TCP/IP stack allowed better scaling on the same hardware. Tons of ISPs ran nothing but FreeBSD.

Yahoo and Hotmail ran FreeBSD for a long time, too.

Re: OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video]

#190

Post by tyri_kai_psomi »

toyg wrote: post #185
riffraff wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same applies to Stallman, if you consider that the FSF has been running for 34 years. But I believe grandparent didn't mean they lack charisma, but that they didn't have enough to swerve the general public.

With charisma, it’s not just quantity but quality. What appeals to some will repel others. De Raadt has qualities that entice him strongly to some, but are irksome to many, many more. See for example the trollish attitude to Comic Sans.

And Stallman is very off-putting to many with how unabashed and unashamed he is about some of his more extreme progressive views. Unfortunately for him, that excludes almost half of the potential support he would receive.
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