I'm not saying it was them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Intel was trying to recover its reputational damage by hiring ppl to heavily research breaks in AMD c

I'm not saying it was them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Intel was trying to recover its reputational damage by hiring ppl to heavily research breaks in AMD chips to even the reputational playing field. They're the ones that stand to gain the most from this legal but shady tactic and have been reportedly scared of losing their long held market dominance in desktops and servers. Iirc AMD wasn't vulnerable to Meltdown which I speculate changed the market calculus in ways detrimental to Intel that both companies would be well aware of. Interestingly, you'll note that the researchers claim public interest as their reason for non-standard practices, but then later it is revealed you need admin privileges to exploit them. The rhetoric the researchers use is inflammatory and staged in a media savvy way like a PR campaign. This is a totally evidence free assertion and I'm not an infosec person (and am therefore happy to be set straight by experts) but I'll be happy to crack open the popcorn if something interesting is revealed a few years down the line.