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Linus Torvalds declares Intel fix for Meltdown/Spectre 'COMPLETE ANDUTTER GARBAGE'
The always outspoken Linus Torvalds, best known for his
continuing work on the innermost code of Linux systems, has harsh words to say and accusations to level against Intel. His evaluation of Intels latest proposed fix for the Meltdown/Spectre issue: the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE. As a potential line of inquiry, he suggests: Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? (Asterisk his.) These and other kind epithets are awarded by Torvalds in a public email chain between him and David Woodhouse, an engineer at Amazon in the U.K., regarding Intels solution as relating to the Linux kernel. The issue is (as far as I can tell as someone far out of their depth) a clumsy and, Torvalds argues, insane implementation of a fix that essentially does nothing while also doing a bunch of unnecessary things. The fix needs to address Meltdown (which primarily affects Intel chips), but instead of just doing so across the board, it makes the whole fix something the user or administrator has to opt into at boot. Why even ask, if this is such a huge vulnerability? And why do it at such a low level when future CPUs will supposedly not require it, at which point the choice would be at best unnecessary and at worst misleading or lead to performance issues? Meanwhile, a bunch of other things are added in the same patch that Torvalds points out are redundant with existing solutions, for instance adding protections against an exploit already mitigated by Google Project Zeros retpoline technique. Why do this? Torvalds speculates that a major part of Intels technique, in this case Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation or IBRS, is so inefficient that to roll it out universally would result in widespread performance hits. So instead, it made the main Meltdown fix optional and added the redundant stuff to make the patch look more comprehensive. Is Intel really planning on making this **** architectural? Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense. That makes all your [i.e. Woodhouses] arguments questionable and suspicious. The patches do things that are not sane. So somebody isnt telling the truth here. Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons. Sorry for having to point that out. Woodhouse (who in a long-suffering manner asks they be done with the shouty part), later in the thread acknowledges Torvalds criticism, calling IBRS is a vile hack and agreeing that Theres no good reason for it to be opt-in. But he but notes some points that are, if not exactly in favor of Intels approach, at least explain it a bit. Intel, for its part, offered the following statement: We take the feedback of industry partners seriously. We are actively engaging with the Linux community, including Linus, as we seek to work together on solutions. So at least they seem to still be on a first-name basis. At any rate, this is all very deep discussion and really only a small slice of it. Im not highlighting this because I think its technically interesting (Im not really qualified to say so) or consequential in terms of what users will see (its hard to say at this point) but rather to simply point out that the Meltdown/Spectre debacle is far from over in fact, its barely begun. What we saw a few weeks back was the initial wave of craziness and the first line of defense being established. But the work of protecting the billions of devices affected by these problems is going to go on for years as conflicts like this work themselves out. And Linus Torvalds, as profane as his criticisms are wont to be, is one of the many people working hard on behalf of the open-source community and the people who ultimately benefit from it down the line. If there werent detail-oriented, no-BS, old-school coders out there watching out for the likes of you and me, the great complacent unwashed out here in userland, we would have to take whatever Intel and the others hand us and thank them in our ignorance. I for one am glad to have people smarter and more uncompromising than myself fighting on our behalf, however shouty they may be. Comments: Hugh Cry University of Calgary, Canada Because Linux is bug free, right? Torvalds is sitting in a glass house. Like Reply 10 Jan 22, 2018 12:48pm Gene Keenan Works at Self-Employed https://www.theverge.com/.../intel-advises-pause... Like Reply 5 Jan 22, 2018 12:55pm Vince Feminella Head Brewer at Screwy Brewing Company uh...while Linux runs on Intel, its far from being a CPU architecture. Like Reply 10 Jan 22, 2018 12:59pm Mace Moneta This has nothing to do with being "bug free" it's about the way a bug was (not) fixed. Like Reply 38 Jan 22, 2018 1:00pm Edited https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/li...eclares-intel- fix-for-meltdown-spectre-complete-and-utter-garbage/ |
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Linus Torvalds declares Intel fix for Meltdown/Spectre 'COMPLETEAND UTTER GARBAGE'
Nomen Nescio wrote:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/li...eclares-intel- fix-for-meltdown-spectre-complete-and-utter-garbage/ Old news and out of context. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/21/192 Paul |
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Linus Torvalds declares Intel fix for Meltdown/Spectre 'COMPLETEAND UTTER GARBAGE'
On 29/1/2018 14:58, Paul wrote:
Nomen Nescio wrote: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/22/linus-torvalds-declares-intel-fix-for-meltdown-spectre-complete-and-utter-garbage/ Old news and out of context. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/1/21/192 We are just casual users of computer technology. We can only trust their patches and explanations. They could lie and we could never find out. -- @~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!! / v \ Simplicity is Beauty! /( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you! ^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3 不借貸! 不詐騙! 不援交! 不打交! 不打劫! 不自殺! 請考慮綜援 (CSSA): http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa |
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