Intel Says CEO Dumping Tons of Stock Last Year 'Unrelated' To Big Security Exploit (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Late last year, the CEO of Intel sold millions of dollars in company stock, as CEOs often do. The sale appears to have occurred while developers were reportedly rushing to fix a major security flaw affecting Intel processors made in the last decade. According to a report published by the Register this week, "a fundamental design flaw in Intel's processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug." Windows and Linux developers have reportedly been working to address the issue since November. As our friends at Gizmodo ES pointed out, Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich sold roughly $11 million in company stock at the end of November. Counting the employee stock options Krzanich exercised, the CEO unloaded 245,743 shares, leaving him with 250,000 remaining shares -- the minimum Krzanich is required to own according to the company's bylaws, the Motley Fool reported. To be clear, this isn't proof of some insider-trading conspiracy. Contacted by Gizmodo, an Intel spokesperson called the sale "unrelated," and said it "was made pursuant to a pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1) with an automated sale schedule."

Comments

Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[OffTheLip]

Krzanich had a tested stock dump plan to follow.

Re:Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[SlaveToTheGrind]

It doesn't hold a candle to your shoot-from-the-hip incendiary comment plan. I and others have written repeatedly in detail about why the timing and amount of Equifax's execs' transactions were completely consistent with their past trading patterns and weren't at all consistent with a dump. Did you have some specific facts you wanted to share with the class that support your belief that those transactions were indeed uncharacteristic?

Re: Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[Anonymous Coward]

To avoid the appearance of impropriety, executives often are required to schedule stock sales months ahead of time. That's what happened here.

Equifax only allows executives to sell stock during certain windows during the year. When those windows open, lots of executives sell, which is why 4 or 5 of them sold around the time of the breach.

Given a big enough company, at least one insider is always selling stock within a few days of bad news. Which makes these kinds of stories flamebait and should be modded -1.

Re: Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[LordKronos]

To avoid the appearance of impropriety, executives often are required to schedule stock sales months ahead of time. That's what happened here.

Yes, but how many months ahead of time in this particular case? From some of the released information so far, we know that Google contacted Intel about their discovery of this issue on June 1, 2017.

According to the link below (warning...anti-adblock popup), the sales were arranged in October, LONG after Intel was aware of it. Between June and October, it's almost certain information about the magnitude of this vulnerability and the impact of fixing it had made it all the way up to to the CEO.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Re: Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[sheph]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Usually stuff like this doesn't become public until many meetings are held determining how to manage the PR nightmare. I'll bet they've known about this for at least a year, maybe two.

Re: Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[Anonymous Coward]

He's been buying options and selling stock for a while. Yes, he divested a bit at the end of 2017, but he did that at the end of both 2015 and 2016. I expect this kind of BS from The Register, but Motley Fool used to be a reliable source.

Re: Good enough for Equifax, good enough for Intel

[LordKronos]

I don't know. That chart you linked was pretty telling. He used to hold 300k shares. Then his typical average went to 350k shares, drifted up to 400k, then drifted up to 500k shares. There was some fluctuation, but over time he was generally increasing his holdings pretty reliable. Then bam!!! End of November comes and he sold every last share that he was allowed to sell (Intel rules say the CEO musk own 250k shares, and he sold down to exactly 250k).

One odd thing about that chart. The numbers on that chart dont exactly add up between consecutive transactions (previous total +/- shares traded should equal new total), but they are at least reasonable close. But then the 2nd to last line we see he has a balance of around 500k shares (which is consistent with the trend), but that the last line where he ends up with exactly 250k shares left, but it says he traded almost 900k shares to get to that point. Not sure what that discrepancy is about.

Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

The class war is in full effect. Time you picked a side.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering what you Bolsheviks did to eastern europe, I'll pass.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

The class war is in full effect. Time you picked a side.

CEOs and their obscene salary and bonus schedules are put in place by board members.

If you want to kill the snake, you better fucking wise up and understand where the head is. Otherwise, you'll solve nothing, and remain a rambling idiot.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

False dilemma.

Re: Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear. You got that right.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Which side has "mechanized agriculture" and "no mass murder"?

Oh, right, not YOUR side apparently.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's all good because obscenely rich assholes that "vote" themselves onto the board grant obscene salaries and bonus schedules to other obscenely rich assholes, who happen to be board members where the first group of obscenely rich assholes happen to be executives. And they all stay in place because they control more shares as a group than the unorganized masses, with the exception of the indifferent hedge funds that are operated by the same set of obscenely rich assholes.

Gee, I can't imagine where the problem may lay. Who's watching the watchers?

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Bing Tsher E]

Considering what they did to eastern europe, I will choose the other side.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Bing Tsher E]

Who would you suggest will watch the 'new' watchers?

Or do not advocate 'organizing' to plot your little overthrow? When whomever is leading the rebellion consolidates power, same as it ever was.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Nidi62]

The class war is in full effect. Time you picked a side.

CEOs and their obscene salary and bonus schedules are put in place by board members.

Ah, yes. The board members who themselves are CEOs for other companies and who get paid salaries and get benefits that are comparable to other CEOs. The whole thing is more incestuous than a medieval French court.

Re: Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Re:Someone needs to shoot some CEOs

[HiThere]

Neither.

Don't let the labels fool you, look at how the system works. The US is a complex oligarchy of the fascist sub-type. Russia was a failed attempt at a totalitarian state. I'm not quite sure quite what it is now, most probably a police state. China...well, I'm not sure yet. A decade or so ago it was still an Imperial state with the names changed, including worship of the emperor. These days ... I'm not sure. It may be a successful totalitarian state, or maybe something quite different.

This may be technically true.

[ChodaBoyUSA]

The sale did occur after the security flaws (remember, there have been several) were reported. He may actually get away with this.

Re:This may be technically true.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And maybe all he had to do was not to cancel a pending sale.

Re:This may be technically true.

[kiviQr]

You can do better, setup a sale every 3 months just in case. If "in case" does not happen cancel transaction and wait for next window. If "in case" happens you are covered.

Re: This may be technically true.

[Anonymous Coward]

The SEC isn't stupid, and this is high profile enough to get looked at. But if you're the CEO of a mom and pop shop, you might slip by without scrutiny.

Re:This may be technically true.

[ranton]

The sale did occur after the security flaws (remember, there have been several) were reported. He may actually get away with this.

Get away with what? The stock went up after his sale, and it still at the same price now that it was in late November. You have to personally gain from insider trading to be convicted, and if he would have waiting until the exploit was made public he would have actually made more money.

This is a non story.

Re: This may be technically true.

[kenh]

But if you're the CEO of a mom and pop shop, you might slip by without scrutiny.

And of course, by "mom and pop" you mean a publicly-traded mom and pop, right?

"Captain..."

[MitchDev]

"...sensors are indicating bullshit levels completely off the scale..."

Re:"Captain..."

[Anonymous Coward]

"...sensors are indicating bullshit levels completely off the scale..."

Ha ha. Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud.

Not raleted

[Anonymous Coward]

Not related to the even... like equifax stock sales ?

"Shyeah..."

[Guyle]

"... and monkeys might fly out of my butt." -Wayne Campbell

The way the market works.

[Anonymous Coward]

You buy stock when you think the value will go up. You sell stock when you think the price will go down. You sell all your stock (or all you can) when you KNOW the price will go down. Just ask Martha Stewart.

Yes. Marxist bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The self-styled "Have Knots" love to get their panties in a wad.

CAPTCHA breads (Marxists tend to have them not).

If I were a sneaky CEO

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have a "pre-planned" sale always in the pipeline, and then find a way to delay it when I didn't want it to go through. Kind of a warrant canary for stock dumping.

It's not a crime

[rsilvergun]

if the law isn't enforced.

Re:It's not a crime

[nucrash]

Just donate to the right candidates and you will never have any legal problems.

Re:It's not a crime

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a crime if the law isn't enforced.

Or more on topic, it's not a crime if there is no law against it.

The SEC goes by when the automatic schedule was issued, not when it executes.
So it doesn't really matter if that trade executed after the flaw was known, what matters if the schedule was put in before or after the flaw was known.

Now granted we only have "an Intel spokesperson" to go by here, but if that statement isn't a lie then you would need to prove Intel was made aware of the flaw in early 2017 when the schedule was set up.

Re:It's not a crime

[ranton]

It's not a crime because it's not a crime. If he would have waited until after the story broke he would have made more money of the sale of his stock, because the price is still higher than it was on Nov 29th. You need to personally gain to be accused of insider trading.

Re:It's not a crime

[smooth wombat]

You need to personally gain to be accused of insider trading.

That isn't entirely correct. One can do insider trading to prevent a loss as well as get a gain. The definition from the SEC:

Illegal insider trading refers generally to buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security. Insider trading violations may also include "tipping" such information, securities trading by the person "tipped," and securities trading by those who misappropriate such information.

The next paragraph relates to the current issue:

Examples of insider trading cases that have been brought by the SEC are cases against:

Corporate officers, directors, and employees who traded the corporation's securities after learning of significant, confidential corporate developments;

Friends, business associates, family members, and other "tippees" of such officers, directors, and employees, who traded the securities after receiving such information;

Employees of law, banking, brokerage and printing firms who were given such information to provide services to the corporation whose securities they traded;

Government employees who learned of such information because of their employment by the government; and

Other persons who misappropriated, and took advantage of, confidential information from their employers

The link from the SEC

Re:It's not a crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Google found and reported the exploit to Intel in 2016.

Re:It's not a crime

[rtb61]

It was lower because they were selling stock, when CEO start dumping stock, yeah buddy, it certainly does not improve stock prices. Not to forget mister mutton brain, if they sold it for a profit then they made money, they just made less money if they would have waited and found out the bug has less of a fiscal impact. So yeah, really, really, really, looks like insider trading and failure to prosecuted would really, really, really look like rampant corruption. Oh so public, it's going to be really, really, really hard to slime out of this one. About the only way, prove they were unaware of the problem.

Good Business Move?

[GregMmm]

I'm no BK fan, as I used to work for the company, but I think this is just bad timing. I would have sold about the same time also. The stock is the highest it's been since the .com bubble burst. Intel stock has been an ok dividend stock for many years now, but relatively flat.

Re:Good Business Move?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for the company as well and I agree. It only makes sense to sell the maximum amount of stock at all times and diversify ones holdings. My rule for holding a stock is would I buy it if I had the cash instead. No one who is required to own more stock in a company than would make sense for a properly diversified portfolio would ever buy that company if they had cash they were looking to invest and there are a lot of much better investments out there than Intel stock. They pay a dividend or else no one would own them and support the share price with constant buy backs, but rarely see much organic growth in share price not attributable to the buy back program.

Driver performance ought to be wondered about

[Anonymous Coward]

Driver performance ought to be wondered about - why? Drivers run in kernelmode space. If this patch is what I think it is, perf hits result (across the board) - granted, I haven't done a "TON" of reading on this (busy w/ domestic tasks shovelling out TONS of snow, grocery shopping, auto repairs etc.) but it seems NOBODY IS LISTING VERY MANY SPECIFIC APPS THAT WILL TAKE A "HIT" IN PERFORMANCE - gosh, I "wonder why"? Not...

* I strongly, & hopefully NOT incorrectly, suspect that everything is going to take a beating due to drivers running in kernelmode space.

(Yes, I know - Mr. Torvalds said it's only SOME applications that are affected like VM's but I wonder based on the above).

APK

P.S.=> We'll see shortly enough on MS "Patch Tuesday" less than 6 days from now IF I am right (hopefully I'm not & FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME guys - thanks)... apk

Re:Driver performance ought to be wondered about

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I can gather, it looks like steps are being taken to prevent the speculative execution of calls into kernelspace, which will reduce the amount of time spent in parallel execution, where the CPU is precomputing results it will want once it is has transitioned to ring 0. Instead it will have to wait to finish its transition before it can start on these, because the exploit seems to rely on crafting a case where you begin this execution and get some data that has malicious results before the CPU realizes you didn't have permission to do what you asked to do. This means that you'll see a slowdown if you do a bunch of these calls, and not much of a slowdown if you make rare use of them, which is why the benchmarks are all over the place.

Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[CraigCruden]

The sale was more than likely schedule well in advance of that date - which would be before the defect was reported. As such he is not trading on insider information since he was not relying on any insider information. It doesn't necessary look good, and if he were interested in the optics of it -- he could have cancelled it... but it was not a requirement. The majority of his assets are likely Intel stock by the fact he gets paid in it - and financially it makes sense to diversify - especially with the renewed competition with AMD.

So lucky, bad optics, but nothing illegal.

Also, The stock price is actually at or above the price that it was in November...

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen the trade was scheduled one month before the sale. This was after he already knew of the exploit.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Ecuador]

I'd be interested to know if he schedules a sale every year and usually cancels ;)
I mean that's what I would do if I wanted to make my insider trading legal, always have a scheduled sale just in case...

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[MachineShedFred]

According to TFA, he sold every share, and exercised every option he could while still retaining exactly the amount of shares necessary to comply with his employment agreement.

Short version: He unloaded everything he could and still remain CEO.

Further questions: when exactly did Intel learn of the problem? When exactly did Mr. Krzanich learn of the problem? When exactly did Mr. Krzanich file the pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1)?

If those all happen in a sequence, he needs to go to fucking jail. By the way, Intel employees are given restricted stock grants as part of their performance reviews - how many employees are getting the shaft on unvested shares while this guy cashes out ahead of bad news?

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Business Insider: Link

Intel knew back in June. The stock sale was planned in October and actually executed in November.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

The method employed by well-knowing executives recommended by corporate lawyers is to always have pre-scheduled sales of stocks and options.

When an executive is aware of information that they could possibly profit from by the sale, they do nothing. When they are not, the sale is rescheduled a quarter or two ahead.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Google's Project Zero, Intel was notified about these security exploits in June 2017.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, but he sold fewer shares than he is retaining due to company bylaws.

What's more interesting is the AC poster below this post claiming that Intel has known about the flaw since June, but the sale was only scheduled in October. That's far more damning than the quantity at stake here.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Project Zero, Intel was notified of these exploits in June.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is likely that he has a regular scheduled stock dump which will happen automatically, unless cancelled - usually if all goes well with Intel, he cancels the sale. So when he did nothing, everything was unloaded automatically and he can argue that it was all preplanned and had nothing to due with this clusterfsck.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[hcs_$reboot]

According to Project Zero, Intel was notified of these exploits in June.

Intel could have been aware of the problem early on, and decided to ignore it until it's revealed from outside.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Short version: He unloaded everything he could and still remain CEO."

That's a very dramatic way of phrasing it. Another way would be, Intel CEO seeks to diversify their investments by selling less than 50% of their Intel shares.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

But couldn't he just schedule regular sales each month (lets say a year in advance) and then cancel them as they came up? If something bad was going on at the company, he just wouldn't cancel that months sale. "Oh no officer, I've had this sale scheduled for well over a year now!"

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[tlhIngan]

According to TFA, he sold every share, and exercised every option he could while still retaining exactly the amount of shares necessary to comply with his employment agreement.

Short version: He unloaded everything he could and still remain CEO.

Further questions: when exactly did Intel learn of the problem? When exactly did Mr. Krzanich learn of the problem? When exactly did Mr. Krzanich file the pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1)?

If those all happen in a sequence, he needs to go to fucking jail. By the way, Intel employees are given restricted stock grants as part of their performance reviews - how many employees are getting the shaft on unvested shares while this guy cashes out ahead of bad news?

Uh, if you were paid partially in stock, you'd cash out too. And executives cannot sell stock acquired this way at any time they wish. They have to file plans to sell the stock anywhere from 6 to 12 months or more ahead of time. This is public information, and as an investor, you can read those filings and unload your stock a day before if you wish.

It's completely automated - the sale order was set and barring anything, all you can do is cancel it.

And yes, if you're paid in company stock, regardless if you're a CEO or janitor, it is sound investment strategy to sell all your stock compensation as soon as possible. Sell every share you own that you can, exercise every option you can. Don't be an idiot and hang onto company stock. If you want to invest in your company, sell your shares, then buy them on the open market as part of a diversified portfolio.

Far too many people have gotten burned because they took stock as compensation and never sold it, even when they changed jobs. Then companies go out of business or other thing and now their entire retirement portfolio holds junk. (Yes, some people got retirement savings paid into as stock)

If you're require to hold onto a certain amount of stock, that's all you hold - sell the excess.

It's like being paid in options - they're worthless so make trades to turn them into cash. This is especially true nowadays when the dot-com boom of people becoming instant billionaires is no longer true. Exercise your options (unless they're underwater), take the profit (and use it to pay your capital gains taxes), and if you still want to hold onto the stock, buy it on the open market at market value.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[thegarbz]

Not even Intel's CEO would be stupid enough to hold any more Intel stock than he absolutely had to, especially if that's the way you get paid.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[thegarbz]

Yeah it seems fishy, except that's precisely how most CEOs operate. Shit I'm not even a CEO and I have an automated yearly sale scheduled for my stock options.

It may seem like a good idea for performance of a company to tie company success to people's efforts, but the people in general don't like their money being tied to the performance of others.

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[The Cynical Critic]

The sale was scheduled in advance yes, but only in late October when Google informed Intel of their findings in very early June. In other words; The sale was scheduled months after they were informed of the problem.

When you factor in that "little" tidbit, this is about as clear as cases of insider trading get...

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[cyn1c77]

The sale was more than likely schedule well in advance of that date - which would be before the defect was reported. As such he is not trading on insider information since he was not relying on any insider information. It doesn't necessary look good, and if he were interested in the optics of it -- he could have cancelled it... but it was not a requirement. The majority of his assets are likely Intel stock by the fact he gets paid in it - and financially it makes sense to diversify - especially with the renewed competition with AMD.

So lucky, bad optics, but nothing illegal.

Also, The stock price is actually at or above the price that it was in November...

What you mean to say is that the stock sale was scheduled in advance, so he just pushed the announcement of the security exploit back by a few months to prevent himself from losing millions.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, eh?

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

According to the best information I have:

when exactly did Intel learn of the problem?

June 1st, 2017 (Google's Disclosure)

When exactly did Mr. Krzanich learn of the problem?

Unknown

When exactly did Mr. Krzanich file the pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1)?

October 30th, 2017. (Business Insider)

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/0...

"The filing showed that the sales were part of a 10b5-1 plan, which was created on Oct. 30,"

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Securi...

"2017 Nov 09: the Ubuntu Security team is notified by Intel under NDA "

So, not entirely outside the realms of possibility that the issue was known when the filing was made, and not what I would describe as "well in advance"

Re:Bad optics, but not likely illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sale was scheduled that's true. Except it was scheduled _after_ Google notified Intel about the flaw early last year.

There are always classes - even in Soviet Union

[CraigCruden]

Even in the Soviet Union there are always classes - you had the ruling class and everyone else typically.

So yes, less people with wealth but far far more poor people that had to line up for hours on end waiting for food.

Maybe you should just move to Venezuela...

no cred for Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel's stock price was not particularly volatile. The most notable change was a significant increase in the last part of the year. If web based news services wish to taken seriously, they need to demonstrate at least a shred of integrity. A minor bug is really nothing on the radar of investors. There was no precipitous decline of price. There is no actual story here. It is just web based news engaging in click baiting.

I'm down on Buzzfeed because of their contribution to an NPR piece about Iran that was laughably bad.

Re:no cred for Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

A minor bug? Calling this a minor but is like calling your Down Syndrome a minor medical condition. Fuckwit.

Re: no cred for Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

You're down on Buzzfeed because of a single clickbait piece of shit article? It's their whole business model.

Re:Kracznik

[Killall -9 Bash]

Best racist eye test ever.

-1 informative

Re: There are always classes - even in Soviet Unio

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont you get tired of sucking that meaty cocksalami all the time?

But Im sure youre wife thinks youre a big man.

Message to Brian Krzanich

[DontBeAMoran]

We won't be mad if you buy a total of $11 million worth of Ripple, Digibyte, Reddcoin and Dogecoin.

So any usermode branching (e.g. IF-THEN code)

[Anonymous Coward]

So any branching (e.g. IF-THEN code & other types) in usermode ware that're dependent on driver data feedback = subject to performance drops in other words...

* OK - how much of THAT happens in say, the IP stack OR your videocard drivers (this I would think is REALLY PRONE TO SLOWDOWN of the 2 possibles I noted) for example for programs in usermode that 'talk back & forth' to the drivers noted as examples...?

(PLENTY I THINK)

I'm prepared to accept a speed hit (I figure thru services I don't need cutoff & other performance optimizations I've done since Windows NT to present models of Windows will offset it hopefully) - as I'll take SECURITY & ACCURACY vs. SPEED any day of the week (but I won't like it).

APK

P.S.=> Lastly - Thanks for your reply (I did get to do some reading @ IBM today right after you replied in the 'interim period' before I replied to you & I had best read up on some of this after I finish up my domestic tasks today I noted from other sources too)... apk

Stock price not moved, computers still computing..

[CraigCruden]

Stock price not moved, computers still computing... computers still susceptible to exploits.... so yes, it could be considered minor.

The only way this could be considered major is if it forced a recall of the chips affected, and for that to happen it has to affect the ability to use. A performance hit because operating systems need to be modified to make the system more secure -- only affects reputation to a little extent. If exploding Samsung phones cannot significantly hurt Samsung going forward; then a bug that will never be noticed by 98% of users... is minor.

Addendum & a bit of review (vidcard drivers)

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: IIRC, modern Windows since NT 4.0 placed video drivers in USERMODE - Theoretically should avoid this call into kernelmode space, right?

THEN what about the DirectX layers it talks to - do THEY do a lot of 'kernelmode talk' (I suspect they do)? ... & IF SO, won't THAT take a performance hit here after patching for this problem in Intel (possibly AMD) cpus?

APK

P.S.=> Thoughts/speculation/correction appreciated & thanks in advance... apk

Re:Stock price not moved, computers still computin

[Anonymous Coward]

This basically just ended trust in cloud computing forever. This isn't some buffer overflow in crusty C code left over from last decade. It's an entirely new class of exploit. AWS performance has been hobbled.

https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=269858

Addendum & a bit of review (IP Stack)

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Additionally on the IP stack I noted - In Windows since after Windows 2000, XP onward has a PnP (plug & play) IP stack that is RESTARTABLE in usermode (unlike a PURE kernelmode driver which forces a reboot to update kernelspace with updated drivers in that older std. driver model)!

So thus, it too MAY avoid this & moreso than DirectX & vidcard drivers I noted in my other 'addendum' here https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11564899&cid=55862695/

* Some "Food for Thought" & speculation...

APK

P.S.=> AGAIN - Any feedback/speculation/correction is appreciated & thanks in advance... apk

Re:Stock price not moved, computers still computin

[Bing Tsher E]

"Force a recall of the chips affected?"

Wowza. I am glad now that I've got that stack of Dell Optiplexes and that pile of '486 laptops in the storeroom.

Re:Stock price not moved, computers still computin

[Anonymous Coward]

Stock price not moved

Intel stock dropped from 46.8 to 43.1 (8% drop), AMD stock rose form 10.3 to 12.3 (19% increase). 8% of $24 million would be $1.9 million Yea, it didn't move at all...

A performance hit because operating systems need to be modified to make the system more secure -- only affects reputation to a little extent.

It affects all Intel CPUs. For desktop users perhaps most won't notice, there's going to be plenty of servers that were coping with load fine and aren't up to spec. Especially in the VM/cloud, database and big data areas. They now need to buy 30% more CPU power. That's not cheap, they've just increased the bottom line for a lot of businesses and in some markets where they're locked into pricing by existing contracts that might even push some people out of business. It's not just reputation that affects.

Pocket change

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair 11 million is pocket change to them, maybe he's going to buy a new wristwatch.

Re:Stock price not moved, computers still computin

[CraigCruden]

The stock was about $43 a month ago, It is higher than October of last year when the defect was found when insider trading would have started...it is well within the trading range.

Large users of Xeon processors will likely get a deal on replacements and future purchases if they are significantly affected - but we won't be privy to it. BTW it won't be 30% overall, it will be 30% on some workloads -- so some jobs will be 30%, others may be 5%. The defect is not part of any specifications that I know of, Intel does not do those types of specifications - they do things like processor cores, bandwidth, clock rates, PCIe lanes, etc. As such the processor is still as per spec.

Re: Kracznik

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought he was promoting the new NIKE shoe. RIP.

What did Intel know

[rsilvergun]

and when did they know it. That's sorta what I want to know. If Intel's known about this bug for, say, 10 years and ignored it so they could outperform AMD then I think that's pretty good grounds for a lawsuit. Especially if it's a 5-30% drop in performance.

His trading history is full of these sales

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/intc/insiders?pid=74228115

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trumps election has nothing to do with huge swaths of racist, regressive, uneducated idiots voting for him, it was just a coincidence.

Always the same old "Venezuela" tirade

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that pro-capitalists always mention Venezuela as a typical example of the "failure" of socialism, while completely ignoring the numerous other prosperous countries with mostly socialist governements.

Funny that they also always conflate "communism" with "socialism". So I guess it's alright if we start from now on conflating "capitalism" with "fascim", isn't it ?

Of course, they can't be that stupid. Those falacies are delibarate.

Never attribute to stupidity what can be perfectly explained by malice.

Re:Always the same old "Venezuela" tirade

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialists do not kill CEOs. They take over the businesses of the ones they don't like and subsidize the businesses of the ones they do like.

All they do is play favorites.

Soviet Union - Cuba - Venezuela

[CraigCruden]

My comment was in response to the original poster (you maybe) 'The class war is in full effect. Time you picked a side.'. The Marxist system was created out of basically a class war. At no point did the original post indicate it was socialism -- or for that matter communist.... but the revolution of Marxist type takeovers is more associated with class warfare where you had to 'choose a side'. Socialist countries can be democratic (real -- not just in name) and a democratic system is not about class warfare but about competing ideas and letting the people chose.

The Soviet Union was a Marxist 'Communism' country. Fidel Castro modelled Cuba after Marxist 'Communism' (his words). In many respects Fidel Castro is the ideological father of Venezuela's socialist system -- as such it is not a surprise nor a mistake that Venezuela has consistently moved in that direction. Soviet Union - failed, Cuba - not in great shape and has financial backers to keep it alive, Venezuela ... basically a failed state, North Korea... basically a failed state. China has adopted capital markets and is more a one party rule dictatorship rather than what it was before which was modelled under the Marx doctrine.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is a pretty good definition of insanity.

Re:Stock price not moved, computers still computin

[Anonymous Coward]

The bug was discovered in JUNE you lying piece of shit! Why are you so committed to downplaying the biggest security fucked up of all time and the subsequent illegal actions taken by the CEO of the company responsible? Who ARE YOU? You mother fucker.

Directive: Justify decision at all costs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Directive: Justify decision at all costs.

Not exactly a vote of confidence

[Anonymous Coward]

"Counting the employee stock options Krzanich exercised, the CEO unloaded 245,743 shares, leaving him with 250,000 remaining shares -- the minimum Krzanich is required to own according to the company's bylaws, the Motley Fool reported."

I wonder how many other CEOs and top execs keep the bare minimum; not exactly a vote of confidence in Intel from its CEO

Re: Not exactly a vote of confidence

[kenh]

He has $11m in Intel's stock right now, before the sale he had $22n in Intel shates. He just works there, the board could boot him at any time, why does his investment portfolio need to be 100% Intel stock?

He executed similar sales at about the same time of year in both 2016 and 2015 - it would have been suspicious of he placed the sale order in early July, because that would have been out of character with previous behaviour.

Re: Stock price not moved, computers still computi

[kenh]

Large users of Xeon processors will likely get a deal on replacements and future purchases if they are significantly affected - but we won't be privy to it.

You mean, perhaps, "purchasers" of Xenons? Few large scale users of Xeon processors actually purchase CPUs independent of servers.

How would a discount on future, corrected, CPUs help end-users overcome the performance hit their pre-fix CPUs took?