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It seems Intel has had some second thoughts about Spectre 2 microcode fixes:
Intel has issued new a new "microcode revision guidance" that confesses it won't address the Meltdown and Spectre design flaws in all of its vulnerable processors – in some cases because it's too tricky to remove the Spectre v2 class of vulnerabilities.
The new guidance (pdf), issued April 2, adds a "stopped" status to Intel's "production status" category in its array of available Meltdown and Spectre security updates. "Stopped" indicates there will be no microcode patch to kill off Meltdown and Spectre.
The guidance explains that a chipset earns "stopped" status because, "after a comprehensive investigation of the microarchitectures and microcode capabilities for these products, Intel has determined to not release microcode updates for these products for one or more reasons."
Those reasons are given as:
- Micro-architectural characteristics that preclude a practical implementation of features mitigating [Spectre] Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715)
- Limited Commercially Available System Software support
- Based on customer inputs, most of these products are implemented as "closed systems" and therefore are expected to have a lower likelihood of exposure to these vulnerabilities.
Thus, if a chip family falls under one of those categories – such as Intel can't easily fix Spectre v2 in the design, or customers don't think the hardware will be exploited – it gets a "stopped" sticker. To leverage the vulnerabilities, malware needs to be running on a system, so if the computer is totally closed off from the outside world, administrators may feel it's not worth the hassle applying messy microcode, operating system, or application updates.
"Stopped" CPUs that won't therefore get a fix are in the Bloomfield, Bloomfield Xeon, Clarksfield, Gulftown, Harpertown Xeon C0 and E0, Jasper Forest, Penryn/QC, SoFIA 3GR, Wolfdale, Wolfdale Xeon, Yorkfield, and Yorkfield Xeon families. The list includes various Xeons, Core CPUs, Pentiums, Celerons, and Atoms – just about everything Intel makes.
Most [of] the CPUs listed above are oldies that went on sale between 2007 and 2011, so it is likely few remain in normal use.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Subsentient on Wednesday April 04 2018, @11:16AM (3 children)
My main rig is a heavily mutilated 2008 Dell Optiplex 755 with 8GB of DDR2 RAM, a 2TB SATA mechanical drive, a standard 400W ATX PSU that doesn't even fit in the slimline case and hangs out the back, the CPU upgraded from the original core 2 duo E6550, and a cheap 2011 radeon GPU for the light gaming I do. I also added a PCI (not PCIe) USB 2.0 controller and another front mounted 5 port hub, giving me a total of 10 extra USB ports, which I use a lot.
This unholy monstrosity manages to absolutely demolish any 2018 cheapo Walmart PC, and even stomps my 1st gen Core i5 thinkpad with ease, a more expensive, business class machine that's 3 years newer. I think that's a pretty good set of proof that Moore's law is dead and rotting.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Wednesday April 04 2018, @12:28PM (1 child)
I also have an Optiplex 755 as a "hot standby" office machine. Notably slower than my own workstation - which has an SSD - at CAD, But, for office work,
(Browser, LibreOffice) its barely different.
My family owns about 6 Thinkpad T61's. Almost all are running Ubuntu Mate - the rest are XP or WIn7 as dual boot where some elderly piece of software
insists (eg for driving an embroidery machine). Although T61's don't have actual serial ports, you can get a dock which has one.
My own, a T61p, has an extra H/D where the CD drive can go - to run *BSD.
Can't see that new machines would be a big improvement. Had a look in PC World in December, and the specs were similar to what we have (they
will be old enough to attend secondary school in September ;-)
Our T61's all have variations on the Merom theme. (T7xxx) Are these safe, or unfixable? It would be interesting to know.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hamsterdan on Wednesday April 04 2018, @09:22PM
My HTPC is running a HP (Asus) workstation board with 8GB DDR2, a Q6600 Core 2 Quad, a Radeon 7750 with a 120GB OCZ Agility2 SSD for OS, a 1TB WD drive. It records TV with a QuadHD from Hauppauge (ATSC). Sound is handled by a Soundblaster Xfi with DTS encoding to my AVR via optical. Onboard sound is routed to my vintage stereo gear for my Airport emulator. Not as fast as my i7 tower, but gets the job done.
Playing with OSX on an old Optiplex 745 too, no need for a more recent machine
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday April 04 2018, @06:37PM
The speed improvement from running an SSD as your primary drive is tremendous, so if you can budget that it's worthwhile. Otherwise, nice rig. I go big on power supplies, because they're about the only things that reliably cause serious problems when I buy the cheaper ones. My video card is a mid range 2010 Radeon GPU, HD 5770 that was maybe $180 new :)