Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#111

Post by paulmd » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 7:32 AM UTC

xioxox wrote: post #100

welder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy an AMD chip right now.

How common is the Linux segfault problem on Ryzen now? Just reading about the horrible RMA procedure puts me off AMD unless they can clean up their terrible handling of this problem.

It's still out there. To be clear, virtually no chips before Week 25 pass the segfault test, a large number of chips afterwards pass the segfault test. AMD clearly either upped their production standards or is binning out the worst chips. But there is still a baseline of chips failing.

Some reported instances:

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1635&tstart=0 (user jcoiner, 1726PGT)

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1725&tstart=0 (user scorpio810, 2x 1728SUS)

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1770&tstart=0 (user ryzlin, 1733PGT)

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1785&tstart=0 (user flyinryzen1700, 1737SUS)

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1830&tstart=0 (user skimba 1725PGT, user xtronom 1728PGT)

https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1860&tstart=0 (user jc_yang, 1742SUS)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/76q7ne/got_a_defective... (user grosbof 1733SUS)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user triplesal, 1733PGS)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user istockporno, 1726PGT)

Presumably this is something that will be fixed in the Zen+ stepping/Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2 - not to be confused with Zen2, which will release in 2019?, likely as the Ryzen 3 series).

But for the meantime, be aware that you are absolutely buying silicon with known issues and that you should test it and RMA if necessary, and that there is fixed silicon coming within a couple months here that will probably run significantly faster due to process improvements.

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#112

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

quadcore wrote: post #104

How do you patch a CPU remotely? Are the instructions programmable?

CPUs have code that runs code, essentially. Think of a modern CPU as like a collection of micro-controllers. You have micro-controllers which reads a stream of machine code instructions for a particular instruction set (e.g. x86-64) translates that code into "micro-ops" (RISC-like fine grained instructions) that are then re-ordered and so forth and fired off into the CPU core(s) proper. That whole process relies on a ton of code that exists as essentially "firmware" (microcode) within the processor. Things like translation tables for architecture level instructions (x86-64) to micro-ops as well as code for the scheduler, the branch predictor, and various other micro-architectural parts of the CPU.

Some of these elements are hardwired into the silicon, some are controlled via decode tables, and some are controlled via flags and perhaps even instructions running on different components of the CPU, all of that together is grouped under the heading "microcode". A modern CPU is not infinitely programmable because a lot of functionality is hardwired (for example, what each micro-op does) but there's still a great deal of flexibility in how things work (such as exactly how the branch predictor and scheduler work, the translation of instructions to micro-ops, etc.)

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#113

Post by noselasd » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 7:53 AM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #5

maltalex wrote: post #4

How does one patch a CPU? Does the update come in the form of a BIOS update? If so, then the patch still has to travel through the PC manufacturers, like when Google patches Android. Or can it be somehow applied directly? Edit: Apparently the OS can update the CPU's microcode. No need for BIOS updates. It was even done in the past. For instance, an unrelated Windows Vista update that updates microcode: https://suppor…

https://wiki.debian.org/Microcode The real news here is that Intel thinks they can fix this via microcode. This is surprising because initially there were some strong arguments that this wouldn't be possible.

Those strong arguments were not coming from Intel. To me it's more surprising that someone not involved in the design of Intel CPUs can state what Intel can and can not do - after all, not that long ago people didn't even know the Intel CPUs ran a version of Minix (the Intel ME)

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#114

Post by noselasd » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:12 AM UTC

lawrenceyan wrote: post #77

privong wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just buy an AMD chip right now. AMD chips are reportedly susceptible to Spectre, so that's not going to help. From https://meltdownattack.com : Almost every system is affected by Spectre: Desktops, Laptops, Cloud Servers, as well as Smartphones. More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, a…

Meltdown, however, is the one that results in nontrivial performance degradation in order to patch. And Meltdown specifically only affects Intel processors.

AMD is not susceptible to Meltdown. So the issue is not inherent to the x86_64 architecture.

Knowing that, can it be possible that Intel can patch their CPU via micro-code in a manner that does not affect performance to a great degree, and not require a software patch to solve the Meltdown attach ?

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#115

Post by ithkuil » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:17 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #103

bcantrill wrote: post #27

This is only Spectre, not Meltdown. Meltdown requires KPTI, which depends on your OS. For OSs that did not enjoy months of advanced disclosure (which is: any OS that isn't Windows, MacOS or mainline Linux), that work is ongoing and will depend on the OS. (Speaking for SmartOS/illumos, that work is reasonably far along and making promising progress -- but we don't yet have a functional prototype.) As for Spectre, thes…

> This is only Spectre, not Meltdown. Meltdown requires KPTI, which depends on your OS. Why is that? In theory, on a generic CPU, the microcode changes to stop Meltdown are drastically simpler than the mitigations for Spectre. Are Intel chips incapable of implementing them?

Microcode doesn't control everything the CPU hardware does

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#116

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:25 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #69

jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust all of the userland? Is your machine internet connected? Do you have any open ports? Do you run everything as root? If your answers are yes, no, no, and yes than it likely will make no difference. Otherwise (and the last one is just for fun to attempt to show you this is probably not a wise decision) you probably would do better to take this serious.

How do open ports factor in? And what if you’re internet connected but have JS disabled?

[deleted]

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#117

Post by gaius » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

hodgesrm wrote: post #73

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very disingenuous of Intel tho This crisis has taken Intel, in my mind, from an American behemoth at the vanguard of technology to a sclerotic overgrown mess. Bugs happen, crises happen. When you're a $200 billion company, those mistakes scale deafeningly. The bugs are unfortunate, but not unreasonable. Intel's communication, however, from the first press release to crap like this, has been disingenuous to the poin…

Without taking Intel's side there's another perspective. Meltdown/Spectre are severe and perhaps even unprecedented security problems but if you put them in the overall security context there are many other issues that outrank them at least from the perspective of non-technical users. 1. A majority of Americans using credit had their private data compromised in the 2017 Equifax breach. [0] That's just one of what are…

State actors ranging from the US to North Korea

No-one really believes that the Norks with their steam-powered computers are hacking anything. Propaganda cuts both ways.

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#118

Post by Momquist » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:49 AM UTC

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #50

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very disingenuous of Intel tho This crisis has taken Intel, in my mind, from an American behemoth at the vanguard of technology to a sclerotic overgrown mess. Bugs happen, crises happen. When you're a $200 billion company, those mistakes scale deafeningly. The bugs are unfortunate, but not unreasonable. Intel's communication, however, from the first press release to crap like this, has been disingenuous to the poin…

As much as I hate to say it, I think the Intel PR machine is working stunningly. Every geek I speak to will tell you the world's on fire. Every non-geek I speak to responds with "oh, really? if it's such a big problem how come no-one has heard about it? Oh, ok, well there might have been that one headline..." I am infuriated by Intel's response no end, however I'm also somewhat impressed. They seem to have completely…

> Every non-geek I speak to responds with "oh, really?"

My take on it is that non-tech savvy people are now largely desensitized to any vulnerability discovery, as long as it hasn't been exploited in the wild. Computers have bugs? What's new?

Intel's PR, good or bad, doesn't matter that much.

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#119

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:50 AM UTC

ithkuil wrote: post #115

Dylan16807 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only Spectre, not Meltdown. Meltdown requires KPTI, which depends on your OS. Why is that? In theory, on a generic CPU, the microcode changes to stop Meltdown are drastically simpler than the mitigations for Spectre. Are Intel chips incapable of implementing them?

Microcode doesn't control everything the CPU hardware does

I'm aware, that's why I asked. Do you know? Do you have a reference?

(And I'll laugh pretty hard if it's confirmed that these super-complex branch buffer adjustments are possible, but simple prefetch filters are just not possible on current Intel hardware.)

Re: Intel CEO: Patches will come to 90% of chips in the next week

#120

Post by Bromskloss » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #79

rdtsc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FreeBSD Security Team was notified of the issue in late December Anyone else thinks this was kind of a slap in the face to the smaller communities and companies or is it just me? They were notified in late December, right before the holidays, so that's basically only 2-3 weeks of work. Obviously nobody _had_ to notify anyone, could have just released it right away, so it was a professional courtesy, but why not ext…

FreeBSD secteam was only notified — at all — because Netflix (a big FreeBSD user) requested it of Intel. It was a big slap in the face to smaller communities by Intel.

How did Netflix know about it?