4 ms·
Very dramatic graphs. I wonder when programming languages will start factoring out the ability to check system timers. Some capability-aware languages have alr
by myWindoonn 8y ago
Very dramatic graphs.
I wonder when programming languages will start factoring out the ability to check system timers. Some capability-aware languages have already done so.
- 6keZbCECT2uB 8y agoI wonder if high resolution timers were privileged, we could get by with lower resolution timers. I'm not sure any timing attacks would work with second or even millisecond resolution timers. I don't see handling this at the programming language could help, and I think that whether timing is privileged or not is built into CPUs so there's nothing we can do about it, but this seems plausibly acceptable to deal with speculation. Permit speculation, but make it privileged to detect if speculation occurred.
- skybrian 8y agoApparently low resolution timers do work, but you need more data. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16068631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16068631
- kccqzy 8y agoI don't think so. I think the whole point is that the OS provides time protection in the same manner it provides memory protection: completely transparent to the application. Just like your typical user-mode application does not need to worry about virtual vs physical addresses, I'd say the typical user-mode application would not need to worry about the effect of time as well.