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Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#111

Post by ulzeraj »

formerly_proven wrote: post #103
ulzeraj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That meme with the actor taking to a bloodied Jesus comes to mind while reading you guys comparing google with zoom. You guys are so lucky. I work on Skype for Business over a Citrix Workspace connection. While Skype is an unmitigated disaster that can’t do simple stuff like copying text there is Citrix that requires a wizard installer with admin rights that deploys 3 background services and requires an audio plugin…

Since you are on Skype for Business I'm going to assume you are not using Teams currently. Teams is actually a lot worse in almost every way than SfB when it comes to the functions both systems share. > While Skype is an unmitigated disaster that can’t do simple stuff like copying text Do you mean from shared contents or from the chat? The latter works for me, but since you also mention using Citrix Workspace, which…

Sometimes you copy what you want sometimes you copy the message with the metadata and sometimes copy doesn’t work. Pasting stuff from other sources will cause some weird table elements to appear. There is no way to format code. Sometimes it says the message is too big but then you paste the same message into notepad and copy paste again it works just fine. The text editor and visualization seems to be arctifacts of a bygone era where everything was rich text.

I’m not sure if it’s the clipboard because my employer does not allow shared drives, clipboard, usb or any resource from my local machine except for mic and webcam.

Ohhh and let’s talk abou the HUGE black ribbon at the top of the screen when you are sharing your window. It totally covers the browser tabs. You have to restore the window and switch tabs and maximize it again. It _is_ an unmitigated disaster that degrades the overall experience.

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#112

Post by ziml77 »

bostonsre wrote: post #51
dustingetz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your desktop is already rooted by Zoom

Seriously. I hate zoom, there are so many features that smell like malware (how when a call starts sometimes my system level volume no longer is controllable and I have to go to zoom settings to control it. I have windows+wsl, but it's happened on macs in my company as well). Google gets a lot of hate, but I like their meeting tool because they keep it simple and it works.

We had Zoom at our workplace for longer than most people knew what it was and I still have not installed it on my own PC. If I don't need to have myself on video, I run zoom on the work machine I'm remoted into and use my phone for the audio. If I need to use video, I use the application installed on my iPad since I trust that it's even more sandboxed than my Android device. I would rather not have the application installed on any of my personal devices, but that's the closest I can get when it comes to keeping Zoom away from my stuff.

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#113

Post by krylon »

thanksforfish wrote: post #9
FunnyLookinHat wrote: post #4

Should we have a debate as to whether or not Spectre mitigations matter for some (or all) desktop computers? I know that, theoretically, I could install a piece of software on my Linux box that is malware and could try to read my memory via those methods, but let's be honest - we're all mostly concerned with servers that run code for dozens or hundreds of different clients. I'm a foil hat as much as the next - securi…

Unfortunately "install a piece of software" also includes allowing javascript to run in your browser. So the risk may be closer to "clicking a link". https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-this-spectre-proof-of-c... Additionally, the passwords and keys on your local dev box are very valuable for further attacks, like supply chain attacks.

I've never thought about this, but how big are the performance penalties for Spectre mitigations vs not having Javascript JIT?

(Just to be clear, I'm perfectly happy with the performance of my old-ish machine, so I have no motivation to disable those mitigations.)

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#114

Post by jcelerier »

nickpeterson wrote: post #3

I’ve made similar comments in the past but I think we’re just trying to predict too much about what programs are trying to do in hardware. I’d rather have simple hardware that is light on energy requirements and easier to understand. I don’t think software as an industry really has a “this chip isn’t fast enough problem”. Most of the real slowdowns anyone has in day to day performance has more to do with inefficient…

> I don’t think software as an industry really has a “this chip isn’t fast enough problem”.

yet this is what I'm saying to myself every day, even with very fast computers available, and very efficient code running that hardware pretty much to its limits.

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#116

Post by thatguy0900 »

jacquesm wrote: post #58
dustingetz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your desktop is already rooted by Zoom

And teams. And all that software that you used to be able to use that you have to make exceptions for so that in the end you end up forgetting to re-enable some critical part of the windows scareware implementation. Seriously: try installing Firefox on Windows 10 (I had to do this recently, I have now one computer in the house on Win 10 due to a hard requirement for some software/hardware combo), and you'll see Micro…

With growth hacking it seems that all the it companies that get big now were evil when they were small, too

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#118

Post by seanalexander »

hinkley wrote: post #117

What’s the current benchmark situation with pre-spectre and post-specter hardware now? Is there vintage hardware that is now faster than contemporary hardware?

There are 2011 MacBook Pro laptops that run as fast or faster than the most recent gen of Intel MBPs.

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#119

Post by alisonkisk »

dijit wrote: post #107
voakbasda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely? Use NoScript to temporarily enable only those portions of the single site that you need. No affiliation, just a happy user.

I use a browser called Qutebrowser which doesn't have a noscript addon; but I can disable javascript loading on a domain level. However, overall I can tell you for absolute certain: if you have JS partially disabled things break in non-obvious ways and I find myself playing whack-a-mole with allowing various domains to load javascript to get the page working. I'm pretty certain you do also, because it's basically imp…

I like this breakage because it makes me unhappy with the website and less likely to use it -- the immune system is working as it should.

Re: Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance

#120

Post by alisonkisk »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #87
voakbasda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely? Use NoScript to temporarily enable only those portions of the single site that you need. No affiliation, just a happy user.

/second NoScript. Instead of whitelisting whole sites, you can whitelist links to JavaScript imports across all sites, temporarily or permanently. So for example, you can whitelist urls to all the major JavaScript frontend frameworks’ CDNs, like bootstrap, etc. while leaving known trackers and spyware blacklisted by default. Anecdotally it seems most websites still work with their trackers disabled, as long as they h…

uMatrix by uBlock Origin too.
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