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Many DDR3 Modules Vulnerable To Bit Rot By a Simple Program
New submitter Pelam writes: Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Intel report that a large percentage of tested regular DDR3 modules flip bits in adjacent rows (PDF) when a voltage in a certain control line is forced to fluctuate. The program that triggers this is dead simple — just two memory reads with special relative offset and some cache control instructions in a tight loop. The researchers don't delve deeply into applications of this, but hint at possible security exploits. For example a rather theoretical attack on JVM sandbox using random bit flips (PDF) has been demonstrated before.
True, and commodity chips not to exact spec will introduce disturbance errors. But apparently this is been a known problem with DRAM with various method of mitigation during the binning process. It's just that density and tolerances have become so tight that the issue is now exasperated. I wouldn't be surprised at all if those 19 models also had a few that failed if tested again and again.
Honest. General computing from low-end PCs, phones, and other devices are long overdue in employing ECC by default. So you lose capacity and tiny performance hit. BFD if that means your data doesn't become corrupted. The only people that would care are the PC gaming benchmark queens.
Life is not for the lazy.