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Ironically, a chip company, whom deals in ones and zeros all day long, committed a very serious logical fallacy: appealing to the common practice. One way to i
by debt 9y ago
Ironically, a chip company, whom deals in ones and zeros all day long, committed a very serious logical fallacy: appealing to the common practice.
One way to interpret the statement is that the chip design which they utilized is widely available and understood by everyone in the chip community to be good chip design, thus we aren't at fault, because everyone is doing it.
To reiterate those types of arguments are a very serious logical fallacy and unsound argument called appealing to common practice.
They should fire their PR team.
- qubex 9y agoThis is not by or for technologists, it is by PR folks for stock-market analysts. Far from being at risk of being fired their whole PR department is probably swelled by ranks of excruciatingly expensive corporate emergency consultants and experts paid precisely to output this kind of menial drivel.
- CamperBob2 9y agoTo reiterate those types of arguments are a very serious logical fallacy and unsound argument called appealing to common practice. How were they supposed to avoid an exploit that no one would discover for years? And exactly how is "appeal to common practice" a fallacious or unsound argument? Exactly how much performance -- meaning, how much market share -- is Intel supposed to sacrifice to avoid the possibility of introducing unforeseen bugs?
- debt 9y agoPeople did discover it early on as it's inherent in the design of the chips, it just seemed unlikely at the time. Now Intel has to deal with a huge potential liability if something bad happens because of it. It was just bad business. Also, appealing to common practice doesn't make logical sense. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition
- CamperBob2 9y agoAlso, appealing to common practice doesn't make logical sense. It is hazardous to apply logical arguments blindly in illogical contexts, such as competitive markets. Again: mitigating all possible bugs isn't free. Exactly how much effort and expense is worthwhile, and how do you know beforehand?
- sooheon 9y agoFor competitive markets to remain competitive, actors must receive the right disincentives. Intel reaped decades of competitive advantage by forgoing security for performance. As you said, they decided that the cost of mitigating these known vulnerabilities wasn't worth the benefit. Now it has come to light, and without due punishment, that math will skew even further toward exploitation over safety in the future.
- coliveira 9y agoThese technologies were created at a time when it seemed to be very difficult/near impossible to exploit them for the purposes were seeing today. Of course Intel should have changed course when processor speed and newer technologies were introduced. Rather, they decided not to worry about this.