6 ms·

Issues relating to a bug in Intel cpus

124 points by brynet 8y ago

vultour 8y ago
More links: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/L1TF https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/L1TF https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/l1tf.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/l1tf.html
- resurge 8y ago
  There's also a dedicated site: https://foreshadowattack.eu/ https://foreshadowattack.eu/
adtac 8y ago
>We asked repeatedly, but Intel provided no advance notice. We did not even receive replies to our requests for dialogue. Intel's treatment of *BSD is frankly quite insulting, especially so given that they serve a _huge_ portion of the internet traffic, with Netflix using FreeBSD for content delivery.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Do other manufacturers have a better relationship with *BSD? To be honest the attitude of "everything sucks and everything is broken" doesn't help OpenBSD though they are right to complain about some things.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    "everything sucks and everything is broken" Well, looking at all the chips I've bought in servers for the last 5 years, they are not wrong.
    - raverbashing 8y ago
      Then why did you keep buying them?
      - protomyth 8y ago
        What exactly was the alternative?
  - earenndil 8y ago
    I know that nvidia provides native drivers for freebsd, making nvidia gpus the best ones for the platform. I don't know of anything beyond that.
  - snaky 8y ago
    Not really. But sometimes they send a patch or two https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-amd64/2011-March/013740.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-amd64/2011-March...
- protomyth 8y ago
  The next message in the thread adds to the insult https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153434075003703&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153434075003703&w=2 What's funny is that LWN, a Linux news outlet, might have:
- Twirrim 8y ago
  Certain parts of the BSD community keeps leaking stuff early, either by doing commits in public, or by talking about stuff in advance, before all the bits are in place to protect systems. Hell, they already leaked one this year, forcing a huge scramble all round to get patched out of the door. It has been a persistent issue for years. Why on earth would they still expect to be trusted? It may well be just one or two people doing it, but their actions are screwing things up for an entire set of operating systems. It's especially critical for coordination to happen on vulnerabilities like this one, where it requires a combination of microcode and kernel patches to be done in sync. If one distribution leaks early, all are put at nearly immediate significant risk.
- __bjoernd 8y ago
  OpenBSD's history of leaking embargoed information might be a reason here. If you don't play by the rules, the adults don't let you play anymore.
mynem 8y ago
Is x86 dead now?
- Firerouge 8y ago
  Doubtful, maybe if the power architecture was more accessible for gamers and the average individual. Most ARM & MIPS CPUs just don't yet have the raw power people have come to expect.
- Danieru 8y ago
  These are bugs related to caching and thus unrelated to cpu architecture. The core lesson appears to be that Intel has been playing loose with security. That is not a fundamental x86 problem, not so long as AMD is producing competent cpus.
brynet 8y ago
HN mods: This is not a dupe! Also could whomever changed the title, please change it back? This specifically addresses these issues on Intel CPUs in relation to OpenBSD.
- brynet 8y ago
  Thanks.
merricksb 8y ago
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17759762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17759762
- brynet 8y ago
  Hi, if you're a HN mod, please unmark this. It is not a dupe.
- temprature 8y ago
  Where? I can't see discussion about this submission at that link.
x0x0 8y ago
The key quote from Theo: > We believe Intel cpus do almost no security checks up-front, but defer checks until instruction retire. As a result we believe similar issues will be coming in the future.

124 points by brynet 8y ago

More links: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/L1TF https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/L1TF https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/l1tf.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/l1tf.html

resurge 8y ago
There's also a dedicated site: https://foreshadowattack.eu/ https://foreshadowattack.eu/

adtac 8y ago

>We asked repeatedly, but Intel provided no advance notice. We did not even receive replies to our requests for dialogue. Intel's treatment of *BSD is frankly quite insulting, especially so given that they serve a _huge_ portion of the internet traffic, with Netflix using FreeBSD for content delivery.

raverbashing 8y ago
Do other manufacturers have a better relationship with *BSD? To be honest the attitude of "everything sucks and everything is broken" doesn't help OpenBSD though they are right to complain about some things.
- protomyth 8y ago
  "everything sucks and everything is broken" Well, looking at all the chips I've bought in servers for the last 5 years, they are not wrong.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Then why did you keep buying them?
    - protomyth 8y ago
      What exactly was the alternative?
- earenndil 8y ago
  I know that nvidia provides native drivers for freebsd, making nvidia gpus the best ones for the platform. I don't know of anything beyond that.
- snaky 8y ago
  Not really. But sometimes they send a patch or two https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-amd64/2011-March/013740.html https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-amd64/2011-March...
protomyth 8y ago
The next message in the thread adds to the insult https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153434075003703&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=153434075003703&w=2 What's funny is that LWN, a Linux news outlet, might have:
Twirrim 8y ago
Certain parts of the BSD community keeps leaking stuff early, either by doing commits in public, or by talking about stuff in advance, before all the bits are in place to protect systems. Hell, they already leaked one this year, forcing a huge scramble all round to get patched out of the door. It has been a persistent issue for years. Why on earth would they still expect to be trusted? It may well be just one or two people doing it, but their actions are screwing things up for an entire set of operating systems. It's especially critical for coordination to happen on vulnerabilities like this one, where it requires a combination of microcode and kernel patches to be done in sync. If one distribution leaks early, all are put at nearly immediate significant risk.
__bjoernd 8y ago
OpenBSD's history of leaking embargoed information might be a reason here. If you don't play by the rules, the adults don't let you play anymore.

mynem 8y ago

Is x86 dead now?

Firerouge 8y ago
Doubtful, maybe if the power architecture was more accessible for gamers and the average individual. Most ARM & MIPS CPUs just don't yet have the raw power people have come to expect.
Danieru 8y ago
These are bugs related to caching and thus unrelated to cpu architecture. The core lesson appears to be that Intel has been playing loose with security. That is not a fundamental x86 problem, not so long as AMD is producing competent cpus.

brynet 8y ago

HN mods: This is not a dupe! Also could whomever changed the title, please change it back? This specifically addresses these issues on Intel CPUs in relation to OpenBSD.

brynet 8y ago
Thanks.

merricksb 8y ago

Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17759762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17759762

brynet 8y ago
Hi, if you're a HN mod, please unmark this. It is not a dupe.
temprature 8y ago
Where? I can't see discussion about this submission at that link.

x0x0 8y ago

The key quote from Theo: > We believe Intel cpus do almost no security checks up-front, but defer checks until instruction retire. As a result we believe similar issues will be coming in the future.