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Interacting terribly with CPU branch prediction is the whole point -- Spectre attacks work by messing with the branch predictor, to misdirect speculative execut
by rst 9y ago
Interacting terribly with CPU branch prediction is the whole point -- Spectre attacks work by messing with the branch predictor, to misdirect speculative execution onto paths that reveal information useful to the attacker. So, the point of this whole crazy dance is to effectively disable the branch predictor.
- revelation 9y agoOf course. But it needs spelling out, because branch prediction is essential to good performance and why todays CPUs can be much faster despite not reaching higher clocks. It's much more than just the cost of a few more instructions.