6 ms·

I really could do without "considered harmful" titles. x86 has been one of the most influential technologies of all time and a clickbait title doesn't do it jus

by n0us 11y ago

I really could do without "considered harmful" titles. x86 has been one of the most influential technologies of all time and a clickbait title doesn't do it justice imo.

Bahamut 11y ago
Should also be noted that the link mentions that the paper contains no new attacks - the title is misleading in this context with the new paper qualifier.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Neither of these are valid criticisms. Yours first: it is a new paper. It was just released. It has an "October 2015" dateline. It isn't a variant of any previous paper she's released. It's also a very good paper. Second: this isn't a blog post. It's not a news site. It's a research paper. She gave it a title that follows a trope in computer science paper titles. It's silly to call it "clickbait". As someone who's had the misfortune of going toe-to-toe with Rutkowska over details of the X86 architecture, let me gently suggest that whether she knows what she's talking about and what she's trying to say [isn't] really a fight you want to pick.
  - notdonspaulding 11y ago
    > whether she knows what she's talking about and what > she's trying to say is really a fight you want to pick Did you mean to say: "ISN'T really a fight you want to pick"?
    - dfc 11y ago
      I am genuinely curious: Can you not figure this out by the context alone (hint:misfortune)? Or are you going "big-game hunting on HN" and nitpicking tptacek's comment?
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    That wasn't what I was criticizing - I was criticizing the title on HN. It previously said (new paper). While that is true, in this context, it is actually a summary of existing information. I was not criticizing the quality of information in the paper or article. I was criticizing the summary previously displayed on HN before it was changed, which suggests that someone agrees with me.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I'm lost. This is a new paper. What's the argument?
      - Bahamut 11y ago
        It's a new paper that summarizes - the previous title was "Intel x86 considered harmful (new paper)". It is very easy to draw an inference that a new revelation to consider the Intel x86 is harmful has come from that title - that was my only problem. I enjoyed reading the article. It was a narrow complaint about the title as submitted to HN - the current title "Intel x86 considered harmful – survey of attacks against x86 over last 10 years" is a lot more insightful as to the nature of the article, and less inflammatory (although I'd guess that it was unintentional).
        tptacek 11y ago
        It's called a survey paper. In this case, the survey is particularly valuable, because the stuff in it was scattered across blog posts and conference presentations --- many of them by the author of the survey. Just not a great critique going on in this subthread.
        Bahamut 11y ago
        I think you're completely missing the point...the original title on HN did not have any of that information - it just said "Intel x86 considered harmful (new paper)". No context that it was a survey paper - initial impressions was that it was just another clickbait inflammatory article link. The moderators rightfully changed it, which makes my criticism addressed & outdated.
wmil 11y ago
You should write a paper explaining your views. And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful".
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  > And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful". http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html [edit: clarified context]
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This isn't an "essay", nor is it "axe grinding". It's one of the best current available surveys on X86 platform security. Go to SCHOLAR.GOOGLE.COM and search for "* considered harmful". Most of what Meyer has to say about "considered harmful essays" don't apply to these papers.
    - pgeorgi 11y ago
      I was merely referring to the 'And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful".' part of the parent post.
    - pbsd 11y ago
      As far as academic articles go, "* considered harmful" is probably as vague and bombastic (read: clickbaity) as a title gets (perhaps after 'Ron was wrong, Whit is right'). Personally I'd prefer a more descriptive title, like 'A survey of weaknesses and attacks on the x86 platform'. But then again, I'm a boring kind of person.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
wyager 11y ago
So were PHP and goto statements. How influential something is has nothing to do with how good it is.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  goto is just a mnemonic for jmp. It's the primitive from which all higher level control flow is ultimately derived. It isn't harmful, and it's used a lot even in C.
  - duskwuff 11y ago
    You're missing the reference - Dijkstra wrote a famous letter on GOTO in 1968 which was published as "Go To Statement Considered Harmful": https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF In context, it was a piece advocating against the use of GOTO to the exclusion of all other control structures (e.g, 'for' or 'while' loops, etc).
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      I appreciate you thinking I'm a buffoon who was born yesterday and hasn't heard of EWD215, but it appears your reading comprehension is, to be charitable, iffy. wyager's statement, involving PHP (for which there is not a famous "considered harmful" essay to the best of my knowledge, though there is "A Fractal of Bad Design") and goto statements, was a rather clear implication that both constructs are innately harmful in an attempt to counter n0us' assertion that influential/popular technologies imply a high quality. There was nothing said about using goto statements in presence of structured programming, but merely goto as an intrinsic badness. This is a common belief cargo culted by a many naive commentators and XKCD readers who do not realize that all control flow is derived from goto, and moreover that even in some languages with structured control flow it is still useful, e.g. for resource cleanup and breaking out of nested loops.
      - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
PaulHoule 11y ago
My main problem is with the term x86 because the article conflates form-factor issues (people can spy on you with the microphone in your phone, even the old analog telephone or tablet or game controller, Amazon Echo,...) with x86 issues (some real problems with the architecture in general) and the ME issue which is an intel thing.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  > and the ME issue which is an intel thing. > But is the situation much different on AMD-based x86 platforms? It doesn’t seem so! The problems related to boot security seem to be similar to those we discussed in this paper. And it seems AMD has an equivalent of Intel ME also, just disguised as Platform Security Processor (PSP)
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    The PSP is still a processor with elevated privileges, but it doesn't seem to have the ability to drive the network interface. But she's right insofar as that x86 vendors are either in on this (mostly to satisfy the DRM-hungry Hollywood connection - most of these features have "DRM" written all over them, not "user security") or irrelevant (Via still ships its 20 slow x86 CPU samples per year that nobody wants, probably to avoid losing their x86 license).
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
tormeh 11y ago
"Considered Harmful" is a signifies that the text will be forceful and opinionated. I have nothing against balance and thoroughness, but many authors confuse those qualities with mealy-mouthedness and passive-aggressiveness. When I see "Considered Harmful" I know that the text will have a conclusion that isn't basically "I see some pro's and con's but I don't know guys, maybe more research is needed?". Yes, "Considered Harmful" articles may be a little tactless and imbalanced, but they are usually also concise, honest, informative and funny. Those qualities are important to me.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  Yes, while the utterance itself is general in nature, I object to (ab)using it outside of discussing software language features (as it was originally used).
- bitwize 11y ago
  "Considered harmful" is like a Betteridge-baiting headline. It is important to remember that in the original article, "GO TO considered harmful", Dijkstra a) didn't choose the title; and b) was wrong about GO TO; it is tremendously useful under the right circumstances with no real substitute (except maybe for TCO). Yet how many times is "don't use goto" cited as an iron rule of programming? So when I see "considered harmful" I've got my eye open for a potential thought-stopper, whether deliberately created or not.
hyperpallium 11y ago
The currently prefered clickbait title on HN would be "x86 is the new goto"
- DrJokepu 11y ago
  $BROWSER_NAME is the new IE6.
- dang 11y ago
  Really? I only see one of those, from 5 years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22the%20new%20goto%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22the%20new%20goto%22&sort=by...
  - hyperpallium 11y ago
    I meant generic X is the new Y; "goto" was just a nod to Dijkstra's.
- dbdr 11y ago
  In other words, "is the new goto" is the new "considered harmful"?
jazzyk 11y ago
I could even live with the title if the article discussed a certain _aspect_ of a programming language(like Optional in Java 8, etc) to signal a certain vibe of the argument. But when used wrt a microprocessor/hardware platform, it feels really, really forced. Not the end of the world, but still...

by n0us 11y ago

I really could do without "considered harmful" titles. x86 has been one of the most influential technologies of all time and a clickbait title doesn't do it justice imo.

Bahamut 11y ago

Should also be noted that the link mentions that the paper contains no new attacks - the title is misleading in this context with the new paper qualifier.

tptacek 11y ago
Neither of these are valid criticisms. Yours first: it is a new paper. It was just released. It has an "October 2015" dateline. It isn't a variant of any previous paper she's released. It's also a very good paper. Second: this isn't a blog post. It's not a news site. It's a research paper. She gave it a title that follows a trope in computer science paper titles. It's silly to call it "clickbait". As someone who's had the misfortune of going toe-to-toe with Rutkowska over details of the X86 architecture, let me gently suggest that whether she knows what she's talking about and what she's trying to say [isn't] really a fight you want to pick.
- notdonspaulding 11y ago
  > whether she knows what she's talking about and what > she's trying to say is really a fight you want to pick Did you mean to say: "ISN'T really a fight you want to pick"?
  - dfc 11y ago
    I am genuinely curious: Can you not figure this out by the context alone (hint:misfortune)? Or are you going "big-game hunting on HN" and nitpicking tptacek's comment?
- Bahamut 11y ago
  That wasn't what I was criticizing - I was criticizing the title on HN. It previously said (new paper). While that is true, in this context, it is actually a summary of existing information. I was not criticizing the quality of information in the paper or article. I was criticizing the summary previously displayed on HN before it was changed, which suggests that someone agrees with me.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I'm lost. This is a new paper. What's the argument?
    - Bahamut 11y ago
      It's a new paper that summarizes - the previous title was "Intel x86 considered harmful (new paper)". It is very easy to draw an inference that a new revelation to consider the Intel x86 is harmful has come from that title - that was my only problem. I enjoyed reading the article. It was a narrow complaint about the title as submitted to HN - the current title "Intel x86 considered harmful – survey of attacks against x86 over last 10 years" is a lot more insightful as to the nature of the article, and less inflammatory (although I'd guess that it was unintentional).
      - tptacek 11y ago
        It's called a survey paper. In this case, the survey is particularly valuable, because the stuff in it was scattered across blog posts and conference presentations --- many of them by the author of the survey. Just not a great critique going on in this subthread.
        Bahamut 11y ago
        I think you're completely missing the point...the original title on HN did not have any of that information - it just said "Intel x86 considered harmful (new paper)". No context that it was a survey paper - initial impressions was that it was just another clickbait inflammatory article link. The moderators rightfully changed it, which makes my criticism addressed & outdated.

wmil 11y ago

You should write a paper explaining your views. And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful".

pgeorgi 11y ago
> And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful". http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html [edit: clarified context]
- tptacek 11y ago
  This isn't an "essay", nor is it "axe grinding". It's one of the best current available surveys on X86 platform security. Go to SCHOLAR.GOOGLE.COM and search for "* considered harmful". Most of what Meyer has to say about "considered harmful essays" don't apply to these papers.
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    I was merely referring to the 'And title it "'Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful".' part of the parent post.
  - pbsd 11y ago
    As far as academic articles go, "* considered harmful" is probably as vague and bombastic (read: clickbaity) as a title gets (perhaps after 'Ron was wrong, Whit is right'). Personally I'd prefer a more descriptive title, like 'A survey of weaknesses and attacks on the x86 platform'. But then again, I'm a boring kind of person.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]

wyager 11y ago

So were PHP and goto statements. How influential something is has nothing to do with how good it is.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
goto is just a mnemonic for jmp. It's the primitive from which all higher level control flow is ultimately derived. It isn't harmful, and it's used a lot even in C.
- duskwuff 11y ago
  You're missing the reference - Dijkstra wrote a famous letter on GOTO in 1968 which was published as "Go To Statement Considered Harmful": https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF In context, it was a piece advocating against the use of GOTO to the exclusion of all other control structures (e.g, 'for' or 'while' loops, etc).
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    I appreciate you thinking I'm a buffoon who was born yesterday and hasn't heard of EWD215, but it appears your reading comprehension is, to be charitable, iffy. wyager's statement, involving PHP (for which there is not a famous "considered harmful" essay to the best of my knowledge, though there is "A Fractal of Bad Design") and goto statements, was a rather clear implication that both constructs are innately harmful in an attempt to counter n0us' assertion that influential/popular technologies imply a high quality. There was nothing said about using goto statements in presence of structured programming, but merely goto as an intrinsic badness. This is a common belief cargo culted by a many naive commentators and XKCD readers who do not realize that all control flow is derived from goto, and moreover that even in some languages with structured control flow it is still useful, e.g. for resource cleanup and breaking out of nested loops.
    - garrettgrimsley 11y ago

PaulHoule 11y ago

My main problem is with the term x86 because the article conflates form-factor issues (people can spy on you with the microphone in your phone, even the old analog telephone or tablet or game controller, Amazon Echo,...) with x86 issues (some real problems with the architecture in general) and the ME issue which is an intel thing.

scott_karana 11y ago
> and the ME issue which is an intel thing. > But is the situation much different on AMD-based x86 platforms? It doesn’t seem so! The problems related to boot security seem to be similar to those we discussed in this paper. And it seems AMD has an equivalent of Intel ME also, just disguised as Platform Security Processor (PSP)
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  The PSP is still a processor with elevated privileges, but it doesn't seem to have the ability to drive the network interface. But she's right insofar as that x86 vendors are either in on this (mostly to satisfy the DRM-hungry Hollywood connection - most of these features have "DRM" written all over them, not "user security") or irrelevant (Via still ships its 20 slow x86 CPU samples per year that nobody wants, probably to avoid losing their x86 license).
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

tormeh 11y ago

"Considered Harmful" is a signifies that the text will be forceful and opinionated. I have nothing against balance and thoroughness, but many authors confuse those qualities with mealy-mouthedness and passive-aggressiveness. When I see "Considered Harmful" I know that the text will have a conclusion that isn't basically "I see some pro's and con's but I don't know guys, maybe more research is needed?". Yes, "Considered Harmful" articles may be a little tactless and imbalanced, but they are usually also concise, honest, informative and funny. Those qualities are important to me.

jazzyk 11y ago
Yes, while the utterance itself is general in nature, I object to (ab)using it outside of discussing software language features (as it was originally used).
bitwize 11y ago
"Considered harmful" is like a Betteridge-baiting headline. It is important to remember that in the original article, "GO TO considered harmful", Dijkstra a) didn't choose the title; and b) was wrong about GO TO; it is tremendously useful under the right circumstances with no real substitute (except maybe for TCO). Yet how many times is "don't use goto" cited as an iron rule of programming? So when I see "considered harmful" I've got my eye open for a potential thought-stopper, whether deliberately created or not.

hyperpallium 11y ago

The currently prefered clickbait title on HN would be "x86 is the new goto"

DrJokepu 11y ago
$BROWSER_NAME is the new IE6.
dang 11y ago
Really? I only see one of those, from 5 years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22the%20new%20goto%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22the%20new%20goto%22&sort=by...
- hyperpallium 11y ago
  I meant generic X is the new Y; "goto" was just a nod to Dijkstra's.
dbdr 11y ago
In other words, "is the new goto" is the new "considered harmful"?

jazzyk 11y ago

I could even live with the title if the article discussed a certain _aspect_ of a programming language(like Optional in Java 8, etc) to signal a certain vibe of the argument. But when used wrt a microprocessor/hardware platform, it feels really, really forced. Not the end of the world, but still...