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Linus Torvalds rejects 'beyond stupid' AWS-made Linux patch for Intel CPU Snoop attack
Linux kernel head Linus Torvalds has trashed a patch from Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineers that was aimed at mitigating the Snoop attack on Intel CPUs discovered by an AWS engineer earlier this year. [...] AWS engineer Pawel Wieczorkiewicz discovered a way to leak data from an Intel CPU's memory via its L1D cache, which sits in CPU cores, through 'bus snooping' – the cache updating operation that happens when data is modified in L1D.
In the wake of the disclosure, AWS engineer Balbir Singh proposed a patch for the Linux kernel for applications to be able to opt in to flush the L1D cache when a task is switched out. [...] The feature would allow applications on an opt-in basis to call prctl(2) to flush the L1D cache for a task once it leaves the CPU, assuming the hardware supports it.
But, as spotted by Phoronix, Torvalds believes the patch will allow applications that opt in to the patch to degrade CPU performance for other applications.
"Because it looks to me like this basically exports cache flushing instructions to user space, and gives processes a way to just say 'slow down anybody else I schedule with too'," wrote Torvalds yesterday. "In other words, from what I can tell, this takes the crazy 'Intel ships buggy CPU's and it causes problems for virtualization' code (which I didn't much care about), and turns it into 'anybody can opt in to this disease, and now it affects even people and CPU's that don't need it and configurations where it's completely pointless'."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nuke on Friday June 05 2020, @10:16AM (22 children)
Amazon are shits and scammers - from experience, I don't trust anything from them.
Let them into the kernel and I expect that they would in time turn your PC into an Amazon shopping appliance.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @11:43AM (3 children)
Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday June 05 2020, @07:05PM (2 children)
I only bought Amazon for friends once or twice, since I boycott them for the retarded one click buy patent. The only time I needed one item I scoured the web for the vendor until it popped out and bought direct. Also price had gone down a euro. You don't need Amazon, don't use it.
If they attempt abusing their monopoly, for example if they somehow turn to be implicated in the old school economy operation based on covid 19, then yeah cut it to pieces.
Also vote some politician that instead of mewmewing about equality while fucking the middle class, abolishes custom tax deals, abolishes state funding, enforces direct management of army and emergency service providers and prints money at no debt and/or lets pay taxes in something else.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:34AM (1 child)
We are the Capitalists.
You will be proletarianized.
Your cultural and genetic distinctiveness will be added to our own.
Resistance is futile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @04:08AM
OMG don't scare them!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @12:57PM (6 children)
Linus' efforts to exclude shits, scammers, and incompetents form kernel contributions is problematic.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:17PM
Down with the fascist dictator Torvalds, how dare he criticize a patch of peace from the virtuous Amazon who signaled support for peaceful protests that destroy brick and mortar stores.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday June 05 2020, @02:53PM (4 children)
There was a time when we'd periodically get stories that amounted to "WAAAAA! Linus was mean to me!" And the funny thing was that when I looked into the actual discussion in question, every single time Linus was right and the person making the complaint was wrong. I'm sure he has made some mistakes, but he comes across as quite open to technical arguments when he does so.
If his couple of months of exile taught him how to be nicer about telling someone with a bad patch where to stick it, that's fine, but he's repeatedly demonstrated why he's still the BDFL of Linux despite various efforts to unseat him.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @03:31PM (3 children)
This is something that a few $contributions won't solve is it?
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Friday June 05 2020, @05:13PM (2 children)
Some big $$$ companies that wanted to hijack the Linux kernel development have tried, but thankfully, the community wasn't buying their bullshit.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:06PM (1 child)
Instead we have the travesty known as systemd, thanks to incompetent buffoons on the Red Hat/IBM payroll. I won't mention any of these motherfucking pieces of shit by name, but one is Lennart Poettering. Yes, I know systemd isn't the kernel for all those pedantic folks.
Seriously though, remember that time Linus took off work for like 2 weeks or something, then came back and presented the world with Git?
Can someone please make Linus go on vacation again so he can write a decent init system?
It should only take him a few weeks... I'd rent one of those giant cement mixers (clean of course) to make dump trucks worth of popcorn to watch Linus go full rage on little bitch face beyond fucktarded Poettering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @08:02PM
I mean it, I'm not even drunk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @02:51PM (4 children)
How did they obtain "essential business" status everywhere they operated? Unlike Walmart, they weren't selling fresh food.
(Score: 3, Redundant) by DannyB on Friday June 05 2020, @03:37PM
Because I want my toys! And I want them now! Waaaaaah! And I want them delivered to my doorstep! (sniff!) And now I want food from Amazon. And I want Alexa to tell me what else I want from Amazon. It is essential. How could I live life without it? The sky would fall.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @03:53PM (1 child)
If you haven't ordered from amazon in few months, they delayed mailing of non essential items. For me it took a month to get what i ordered even though they were Prime items.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @05:43PM
working for the bolsheviks, iow
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday June 05 2020, @05:06PM
They do sell fresh food along with other essential items like soap, disinfectant, toiletries, etc etc.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday June 05 2020, @05:12PM (1 child)
Amazon is a huge company, and this patch isn't some kind of nefarious action. What it does show is myopia: the patch is something that's good for their very limited use-case with cloud servers, but which would be terrible or dangerous in many other scenarios (like desktop, mobile, etc.). Luckily, that's why we have someone like Linus at the helm looking at the big picture before just blindly accepting patches from anyone. Corporate contributors like Amazon aren't thinking "how will my patch for server farms affect embedded systems?", they just see a problem and come up with a fix, and then try to push the fix into the upstream so they don't have to maintain a fork forever.
For Amazon's particular situation, the patch might make a lot of sense, and be the most straightforward to solution to the problem. But that doesn't mean it makes any sense for other types of systems, and the Linux kernel isn't a highly-specialized OS kernel, it's a general-purpose one so it has to make compromises so that it can work well on all types of systems.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday June 05 2020, @07:19PM
-bezos
-wat
-the patch
-yes?
-it's myopic
-and?
-and retarded and source of headache for everybody
-did the same shitty trick work for systemd?
-uh... I see, I will ship it now
-fingers crossed
And they didn't live happily ever after because Torvalds
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @06:51PM (3 children)
I bought some legal anime DVDs from them along time ago. They tipped off local law enforcement about my purchase, and my life was completely destroyed as a result. I lost my job, with no hope of future employment. The neighborhood I reside in became infested with cops, lying-in-wait for me to commit some criminal act. Word gets around, & now I'm regarded by people I've never even met as a pedo & a stalker. Presumed guilty until death. I had no criminal record then, & still don't. I'm not a registered sex offender, either. Watch what you buy from Amazon. It could cost you your life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @07:03PM
Cool story Kurt [nypost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @07:14PM
Not pirating fansubs like a well-adjusted weeb? You deserved the jmichaelhudson treatment.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday June 05 2020, @07:24PM
So, consuming material is a crime while distributing it for profit isn't?
Anyway you should have kept the DVD sealed until they were 18 year old, pal.
Account abandoned.