There is no one here saying that there is a runtime that can protect against Spectre. Spectre is just one of extreme example of timing attacks which have been t

There is no one here saying that there is a runtime that can protect against Spectre. Spectre is just one of extreme example of timing attacks which have been troubling our industry for the better part of a decade. It's entirely possible to prove that some types of code do not significantly very they're running time based on the character of their input. A classic example of this is hashing algorithm whose execution time is only dependent on the length of the input. I'm not sure if people recall password oracles but they're still valid attacks today. We can only eliminate these by starting at the bottom and working our way up. If your response to Spectre is to give up on your computer security, I don't think I want you writing software for me. These are the challenges our industry has to face. Failure is not really an option.