Clear Linux Rolls Out KPTI Page Isolation & Retpoline Support

[chuckula]

do you realize that every recent apple ARM product is also affected by meltdown, and every recent not ultra crappy cpu is affected by spectre

You're not only right but every "high performance" ARM core not only from Apple but from ARM itself including the upcoming A75 is also affected by Meltdown (not just Spectre) too.

The level of ignorance and FUD being spread right now is inexcusable.

[droste]

Guys don't get me wrong. I'm with all of you that this is not good and that the developing companies are to blame.

I was just saying that uid313's baseless rant isn't helping. He was complaining about legacy and legacy is definitely not the problem here.

@s_j_newbury: You're probably right. But that even further proves my point. Legacy is not the problem here :-)

[droste]

Pretty sure RISC-V would be considered a "recent CPU architecture" and it's not present there.

Is there any processor available? RISC CPU would have the same advantages as the others when doing out of order execution.

[zamadatix]

Pretty sure RISC-V would be considered a "recent CPU architecture" and it's not present there.

Meanwhile the 2024 mustang hasn't had an engine failure yet!*

*Please disregard that the engine hasn't been designed or built.


But seriously, the only reason RISC-V wasn't affected was they haven't released a high performance CPU yet and only high performance CPUs were affected. It has nothing to do with the ISA being new or open source, simply not complete yet.

[Spooktra]

You're not only right but every "high performance" ARM core not only from Apple but from ARM itself including the upcoming A75 is also affected by Meltdown (not just Spectre) too.

The level of ignorance and FUD being spread right now is inexcusable.

It's hilarious that you would rant about those that are "ignorant" and spread FUD yet make the above statement. I'll let you in on a little secret, but don't tell anyone, ARM DOES NOT produce it's own cpu's, the license the ISA to anyone that wants to make a cpu based on it. There is no such thing as a cpu sold by ARM.

The funny thing is that I am certain that Intel has been aware of these flaws for decades, and most likely more that have yet to come to light. Intel tried to kill off x86 years ago with Itanium, which is not susceptible to these types of attacks because it's an in-order design.

I also think the timeline of all this is pretty telling, first it's revealed that all Intel cpu's run a secret low level OS, based on Minix, as part of it's ironically named "Trusted" Execution Engine and Management Engine, then we find out that Google's engineers are looking at ways to remove that crap from the Intel cpu's they are using and then it's revealed that the design of the cpu's at the hardware level is susceptible to attacks.

Clearly this is done intentionally and I think we, as consumers, need to send a strong message to Intel, ARM, AMD and NVIDIA by boycotting the next generation of their products, not buying any of the new refreshes/releases that are coming out in 2018, let them feel the sting in their bottom line for a year or two and then maybe they'll get their act together.

But if anyone buys a new Intel, AMD or NVIDIA product after what we know now, then they have only themselves to blame if this shit keeps happening.

[numacross]

It's hilarious that you would rant about those that are "ignorant" and spread FUD yet make the above statement. I'll let you in on a little secret, but don't tell anyone, ARM DOES NOT produce it's own cpu's, the license the ISA to anyone that wants to make a cpu based on it. There is no such thing as a cpu sold by ARM.

That is not strictly true. There are multiple types of ARM licenses, one can buy a design for an entire core (Cortex-A53 for example, which is a complete processing core) or have an architectural license that allows them to design their own cores (like Apple, Samsung or Qualcomm). Compute cores, GPUs and interconnects are among the primary products of ARM. They are sold as complete parts to make a SoC by the licensee. Though we might never know for sure but I'd wager that if you buy a certain core from ARM you're not permitted to modify beyond what's needed in order to integrate them into your product.

The fact that ARM themselves are not physically making the silicon doesn't change much here. It's still their design that's largely immutable. Some of them are vulnerable to at least Spectre and some are not (because they lack the speculative execution among other things).

I also think the timeline of all this is pretty telling, first it's revealed that all Intel cpu's run a secret low level OS, based on Minix, as part of it's ironically named "Trusted" Execution Engine and Management Engine, then we find out that Google's engineers are looking at ways to remove that crap from the Intel cpu's they are using and then it's revealed that the design of the cpu's at the hardware level is susceptible to attacks.

It's been known since the C2D era what Intel ME/AMT are. Not only there's documentation from Intel about its capabilities but also when you look at what AMT can actually do it's pretty obvious how powerful the ME must be in comparison to the host CPU.

And it hasn't been Minix always - it's only since Skylake that it's running on a 3-core Quark-like x86. Previous versions were using derivatives of the ARC architecture with a Java-based software stack.

Clearly this is done intentionally and I think we, as consumers, need to send a strong message to Intel, ARM, AMD and NVIDIA by boycotting the next generation of their products, not buying any of the new refreshes/releases that are coming out in 2018, let them feel the sting in their bottom line for a year or two and then maybe they'll get their act together.

But if anyone buys a new Intel, AMD or NVIDIA product after what we know now, then they have only themselves to blame if this shit keeps happening.

Of course it's intentional. There is a market for having your fleet of computers remotely manageable

The "flaws" in that product and their origins are another matter though...

[DanL]

The level of ignorance and FUD being spread right now is inexcusable.

Oh, good. I was wondering what the resident Intel shill thought of the matter.

[L_A_G]

x86 is beginning to feel like a legacy shit architecture.

Looks like somebody's a bit late to the party... People have been talking about the potential (and actual) exploitability of x86 hardware for years already. Here's a pretty good talk on the subject from the 2016 Chaos Computer Congress.

But seriously, when you've extended an architecture as far as x86, an architecture originally designed in the mid 1970s, has been extended you're more or less guaranteed to see all kinds of "interesting" side effects of this.

[ptyerman]

At this rate it won't be long before my Amiga's are outperforming recent platforms.

[unixfan2001]

Meanwhile the 2024 mustang hasn't had an engine failure yet!*

*Please disregard that the engine hasn't been designed or built.


But seriously, the only reason RISC-V wasn't affected was they haven't released a high performance CPU yet and only high performance CPUs were affected. It has nothing to do with the ISA being new or open source, simply not complete yet.

What's your definition of a "high performance CPU"?
Old Pentium 4 CPUs are affected. I'd hardly call these high performance. They weren't even high performance when they came out.
Merely an alternative to electric heating devices.

RISC-V does have an implementation. Namely, RISC-V Rocket. That one was not affected by Spectre or Meltdown.
Doesn't matter that there aren't commercial implementations, yet. Clearly, the architecture itself can be considered a fairly modern ISA and was not affected.