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They also do not have a product for the server market. Yes, they have server-oriented processor families. No, after the storm that has been Meltdown/Spectre, n

They also do not have a product for the server market. Yes, they have server-oriented processor families. No, after the storm that has been Meltdown/Spectre, none of these processor families are still considered "safe enough", even firmware-related fixes won't cut it there because the profitibality of a data center is calculated with TFLOPS/m^2 in mind. Even if profitiability was not an issue (=> government), they won't quite cut it, because you really do not want a system that has this big of an vulnerability just sitting around your high-security/high-impact infrastructure. I do know government agencies in my country who - ever since the Meltdown/Spectre information broke - banned the purchase of Intel processors "until further notice". Intel is in dire straits, and they should be worried.

bsder 9y ago
> They also do not have a product for the server market. And it doesn't matter because NOBODY ELSE DOES EITHER. Intel is so much bigger than everybody else in the space in terms of volumes, that even if they vaporized tomorrow, it would take a couple years for everybody else to plug the hole. Intel has quite a lot of runway to fix things.
vectorEQ 9y ago
intel is just fine. spectre and meltdown were blown way out of proportion. almost every CPU to date has had similar vectors to exploit them or worse. if intelligence agencies don't know this they have shitty assurance and should get better. most agencies for high integrety systems wont have been using intel/amd as there are cpus out there (ibm for example) which offer much better assurance with regards to memory integrity etc. that being said, government is a tiny market compared to businesses (cloud providers etc. etc.) so really if they all switch to ibm or so intel still wouldn't be in trouble. it would be a tiny bump in the road.
- a1xndr 9y ago
  I don't see how Spectre and meltdown were blown way out of proportion? Google and Amazon seem to have treated them quite seriously.. Maybe they should have just closed their eyes. The solution to Spectre right now is "Don't do speculative execution". Meltdown exploits a pretty embarrassing bug in the hardware. One has to wonder how it got through all of the testing/review that must happen before a new design is sent off to a fab($$$). Don't forget that there are 30+ class action lawsuits filed against Intel due solely to these bugs.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
    Most people who run servers aren't cloud hosts, so they're not running untrusted code on their servers in the first place, making Spectre/Meltdown pretty much a non-issue. These sorts of issues were discovered a decade ago when speculative execution first hit the scene, we just never had a practical exploit (in public knowledge anyway) until recently, and even then it really isn't that bad despite all the security apocalypticists shouting that the end was nigh.
    - DocTomoe 9y ago
      > so they're not running untrusted code on their servers in the first place Oh sweet summer child.

bsder 9y ago

> They also do not have a product for the server market. And it doesn't matter because NOBODY ELSE DOES EITHER. Intel is so much bigger than everybody else in the space in terms of volumes, that even if they vaporized tomorrow, it would take a couple years for everybody else to plug the hole. Intel has quite a lot of runway to fix things.

vectorEQ 9y ago

intel is just fine. spectre and meltdown were blown way out of proportion. almost every CPU to date has had similar vectors to exploit them or worse. if intelligence agencies don't know this they have shitty assurance and should get better. most agencies for high integrety systems wont have been using intel/amd as there are cpus out there (ibm for example) which offer much better assurance with regards to memory integrity etc. that being said, government is a tiny market compared to businesses (cloud providers etc. etc.) so really if they all switch to ibm or so intel still wouldn't be in trouble. it would be a tiny bump in the road.

a1xndr 9y ago
I don't see how Spectre and meltdown were blown way out of proportion? Google and Amazon seem to have treated them quite seriously.. Maybe they should have just closed their eyes. The solution to Spectre right now is "Don't do speculative execution". Meltdown exploits a pretty embarrassing bug in the hardware. One has to wonder how it got through all of the testing/review that must happen before a new design is sent off to a fab($$$). Don't forget that there are 30+ class action lawsuits filed against Intel due solely to these bugs.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  Most people who run servers aren't cloud hosts, so they're not running untrusted code on their servers in the first place, making Spectre/Meltdown pretty much a non-issue. These sorts of issues were discovered a decade ago when speculative execution first hit the scene, we just never had a practical exploit (in public knowledge anyway) until recently, and even then it really isn't that bad despite all the security apocalypticists shouting that the end was nigh.
  - DocTomoe 9y ago
    > so they're not running untrusted code on their servers in the first place Oh sweet summer child.