An intentional backdoor: no. But an intentional ignorance of a major security vulnerability: extremely likely. Computer architects have been aware of covert ch

An intentional backdoor: no. But an intentional ignorance of a major security vulnerability: extremely likely. Computer architects have been aware of covert channels for literally decades, from heat signatures, to CPU usage... heck it's even taught in most CS or ECE Master degrees with respect to caching. I wouldn't go as far as saying these two vulnerabilities were "obvious" to most programmers or computer engineers, but they must have been known to many people at the major chip-makers. Someone must have raised it some meeting, probably multiple meetings, and were probably shot down. So not a conspiracy theory, just lack of proper incentives to keep products secure.