SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Vox Media website theverge.com reports that Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) wants answers about the recent computer chip chaos.
Congress is starting to ask hard questions about the fallout from the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Today, Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) sent a letter [(pdf)] requesting a briefing from Intel, AMD, and ARM about the vulnerabilities’ impact on consumers.
[...] The two vulnerabilities are “glaring warning signs that we must take cybersecurity more seriously,” McNerney argues in the letter. “Should the vulnerabilities be exploited, the effects on consumers’ privacy and our nation’s economy and security would be absolutely devastating.”
Privately disclosed to chipmakers in June of 2016, the Meltdown and Spectre bugs became public after a haphazard series of leaks earlier this month. In the aftermath, there have been significant patching problems, including an AMD patch that briefly prevented Windows computers from booting up. Intel in particular has come under fire for inconsistent statements about the impact of the bugs, and currently faces a string of proposed class-action lawsuits relating to the bugs.
Meltdown can be fixed through a relatively straightforward operating-system level patch, but Spectre has proven more difficult, and there have been significant patching problems in the aftermath. The most promising news has been Google’s Retpoline approach, which the company says can protect against the trickiest Spectre variant with little negative performance impact.
The letter calls on the CEOs of Intel, AMD, and ARM to answer (among other things) when they learned about these problems and what they are doing about it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:18PM
They don't really need to understand anything beyond "they fucked up badly". I know it's too much to ask of Congress, what with their horribly empty pockets, but I'd like to see an example made along the lines of "there's no such thing as too big to have to pay for your mistakes".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.