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Top Linux Developer on Intel Chip Security Problems: 'They're not going away.'

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 30 2019, @06:14AM   

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-linux-developer-on-intel-chip-security-problems-theyre-not-going-away/

Greg Kroah-Hartman, the stable Linux kernel maintainer, could have prefaced his Open Source Summit Europe keynote speech, MDS, Fallout, Zombieland, and Linux, by paraphrasing Winston Churchill: I have nothing to offer but blood sweat and tears for dealing with Intel CPU's security problems.

Or as a Chinese developer told him recently about these problems: "This is a sad talk." The sadness is that the same Intel CPU speculative execution problems, which led to Meltdown and Spectre security issues, are alive and well and causing more trouble.

The problem with how Intel designed speculative execution is that, while anticipating the next action for the CPU to take does indeed speed things up, it also exposes data along the way. That's bad enough on your own server, but when it breaks down the barriers between virtual machines (VM)s in cloud computing environments, it's a security nightmare.

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Original Submission

• Stop sharing processors with your enemies Stop sharing processors with your enemies (Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 30 2019, @07:38AM (3 children)

  by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Wednesday October 30 2019, @07:38AM (#913619) Homepage

  So you're in a ride-sharing definitely-not-a-taxi vehicle, and the driver says to you "you don't mind if Mr. Dahmer joins us for the ride, do you?" - what do you say?
  
  Stop using any clown computing provider which makes the equivalent offer.

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

  Starting Score:	1		point
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• Re:Stop sharing processors with your enemies (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 30 2019, @01:42PM

  by DannyB (5839) on Wednesday October 30 2019, @01:42PM (#913688) Journal

  "you don't mind if Mr. Dahmer joins us for the ride, do you?"

  . . . and the cost of your ride will be lower.

  Oh! Lower price! Sign me up! Lower cost wins over all other considerations!

  --
  To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.

  Parent

• Re:Stop sharing processors with your enemies Re:Stop sharing processors with your enemies (Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:02PM (1 child)

  by DannyB (5839) on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:02PM (#913767) Journal

  Mr. Dahmer gives this ride service five thumbs up!

  --
  To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.

  Parent

  • Re:Stop sharing processors with your enemies (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @07:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @07:41PM (#913840)

    "you don't mind if Mr. Dahmer joins us for the ride, do you?"
    Hopefully there aren't many around, but you might not care if you are of like mind.

    Don''t share with your enemies, but if another thread is already sharing the same address space, then sharing the CPU pair might be just fine.
    A multicore app should be able to take advantage of these cores.

    Parent