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Intel Hit With Three Class-Action Lawsuits Over Meltdown and Spectre Bugs (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Intel has been hit with at least three class-action lawsuits over the major processor vulnerabilities revealed this week. Three separate class-action lawsuits have been filed by plaintiffs in California, Oregon and Indiana seeking compensation, with more expected. All three cite the security vulnerability and Intel's delay in public disclosure from when it was first notified by researchers of the flaws in June. Intel said in a statement it "can confirm it is aware of the class actions but as these proceedings are ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment." The plaintiffs also cite the alleged computer slowdown that will be caused by the fixes needed to address the security concerns, which Intel disputes is a major factor. "Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time," Intel said in an earlier statement.
NT
This is an obvious outcome. It's worth keeping in mind that filing a suit does not vindicate or disprove anyone, as there's no way to ascertain whether there will be merit in the suit at this point. All it means is there's enough lawyers willing to make a wager when faced with such a *huge* potential payout.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
...while nobody's suing them for their Management Engine garbage. The two bugs may or may not be intentional, but the Intel Management Engine is absolutely intentional and cannot be disabled.
Of course nothing will ever come out of these lawsuits other than the lawyers getting richer.
If you just look at Intel's legal history, you'll see they have been mired in accusations and convictions of unethical and anti-competitive business practices since the early 1980s. Buying from Intel has always been a devil's bargain, it's just now that you are realizing what you have done because it's directly affecting you.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Court: "OK, so your chip turned out to have a flaw, the company took extra time to investigate, and now your computer is slower sometimes. How is that different than the average Microsoft or Apple update?"
Intel's lawyers will delay this until the hype is forgotten, and either kill it in court or settle for some absurdly low sum, so that all of the plaintiffs get checks for $0.64 if they remember to sign up at IntelProcessorSlowdownLawsuit.com before December 31, 2019.
Alternative Right.
If Intel had disclosed that as soon as they knew, with no fix known or available, _that's_ when you would have a reason to sue them. My Mac got mostly protected some time in December. If Intel had disclosed this, there would have been 5 months open to hackers to attack me.
And what about servers?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Computers have sense because they are general usage (i.e. universal) machines.
Then, it is possible to do many things with them, even more than the original designers visualized. This is why we have Windows, Linux, MacOS, Virtualization and many embedded applications using exactly the same chips, making the effort to create complex solutions extremely cheap and in timely fasion.
But this means that the undecidable nature of what can be done with the computer brain, the CPU, tends to create some undesired circumstances. In fact where a person will see a problem, another one will devise an opportunity to create some interesting type of functionality.
The real problem is that we have been building a very complex infrastructure thinking that the behavior for some CPU characteristic was A when it was really B, and now that the difference has been discovered that infrastructure and its capacity becomes dangerous to use as it is. And ... we need to evolve. Of course people is angry, but this is not the first time and neither will be the last one something like this will happen, particularly with clever people trying to expand the computer capacities.
What to do? Understand, Change (if you call that change a "fix" or an "improvement" it is OK) and Continue. And never to put all the eggs in the same basket, because we are not clear when this type of things will happen again.
Since there are zero cases where the flaw has been exploited to cause any problems, no one has suffered any economic harm. You need to have been harmed in some way to have standing to sue.
And Intel will also argue that they never promised any different chip behavior. They are not issuing any errata. The chips work correctly as designers intended, just like other vendors’ chips.
I expect at least a couple of these lawsuits to be thrown out by judges. Maybe all of them will be dismissed.
Three separate class-action lawsuits have been filed by plaintiffs in California, Oregon and Indiana seeking compensation, with more expected.
No. The lawsuits were filed by lawyers in a race to be first at the feeding frenzy.
I mean uh sharks
I was looking for a "-1 incoherent" mod, but couldn't find one, so you lucked out, and I'm not downmodding this one at all.
I think these lawyers hope Intel rolls over and settles, because I don't see any proof Intel should pay a dime. I have yet to see any proof of any negative affect on these patches with performance or function of any chip. Even being confirmed by Google and Amazon two big server entities that would obviously be upset with any performance hit. This frankly won't affect most PC users in the least, my own testing bears out no speed issues observed or recorded with testing. In fact, we have yet to see any attack in the wild even trying to exploit either Meltdown or Spectre and since this flaw has been around for decades. Clearly there is no argument that Intel or any one company is to blame. Intel AMD, ARM have all used similar designs to boost memory speed. Even in a settlement lawyers would be the only real beneficiaries and the consumer would get a small check to put towards another CPU or device.
If these lawsuits ever get far enough, the federal government will make sure Intel comes out alright. Intel is a huge asset for the US intelligence community -- the feds will fight to make sure Intel retains their effective monopoly on the CPU market so that everyone continues to use compromised technology.
If they knew in June, he was selling stocks on that knowledge.
This kind of class action is useless as it gives nothing to people affected by this issue. The only ones to profit here are the lawyers and there isn't even the nebulous "correct their behavior" part as Intel will fix it next time anyway regardless of the suit.
i can use the back of the $10 coupon i get to securely store my newly-changed passwords.
Die!
> Since there are zero cases where the flaw has been exploited to cause any problems, no one has suffered any economic harm. You need to have been harmed in some way to have standing to sue.
The people who have to reserve more cloud instances or otherwise scale up their hardware after patching for this are going to have large bills they can point to which will provide the economic harm you claim is missing.
Solution for everyone is to limit sharing over protection domains. So it will not matter what processor you have.
Also as part of that eliminating the idea of TLB and there goes splitting as well, not to mention, "rings", and "modes". MRAM can theoretically give the performance of chip-ram, with the size of regular ram.
Seems like more of a make money for the lawyer case than anything else. Doubt the timeline will come into play, better to wait for fixes and provide info early. The chips work as designed, the fact the design is flawed is more software than hardware and since there is a patch to fix the issue can see there is much of financial burden. About the only loss might be CPU performance but for most that may not be a factor.
Obviously you didn't test small block IO nor run any databases.
To what purpose will suing Intel get these guys? Ambulance chasers will get some money, sure, but the rest of us will just get screwed if Intel decides to pass along the costs to us. I mean, it's not like we have a choice. AMD isn't a consideration in the server space I play in.
Expect to receive a coupon worth $0.99 off a shiny new Intel Inside(tm) computer in the US mail sometime around 2028
That most of us were not benefiting from the technological blunder that puts us at such risk.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I just bought a new CPU a couple months ago. I was on the fence between AMD & Intel and had I known this I would have gone with Ryzen.
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I'd expect subpoenas here. This is a 20 year old bug, and one that gave Intel a significant performance edge over AMD. It's entirely possible Intel has known for decades. One stray email is all it would take to blow this up like you wouldn't believe.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I think that the Lawyers work faster than the Chips these days...
When this broke I was poo-poo'd by all the amateur lawyers on slashdot for suggesting a class action suit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not the biggest Intel fanboy, but this isn't a problem limited to only Intel. It affects IBM's Power architecture, ARM, older AMD chips, and probably SPARC too. The most vocal people upset by this aren't the ones deeply concerned about the security implications, but are the ones pissed off that their frame rates in the latest MMORPG might suffer with a patch. I propose letting those people run without a fix, so they can bitch later when their unpatched machines leak their entire identity & finances to some Nigerian website.
What a shitty year. Is it over yet?
So everybody else is experiencing slowdowns except for APK. Hmmm interesting.
Maybe it's not the patch that made your system faster. Maybe it was your host file generator that was speeding up your computer.
Do more with less, amiright?
See subject: Microsoft released it late last night for Win7 users it seems (341++mb) & it sped up my system (by feel alone & I was like "but this should cut speed back") then I got email later from TechSpot (a forum I used to frequent) & "lo & behold" they too saw a SPEED-GAIN (albeit in FORMAL TESTS bearing it out on Win10) & I heard that the Win7 patch wouldn't be out until next "patch tuesday" 1/10/2018 4 days from now, but "surprise, SURPRISE"!
A good one!
I know my system by 'feel' alone (I conduct my day's business on it for @ least 14++ hrs./day) & KNEW it was quicker so, again - see subject & "be happy"!
* Makes you wonder on the cause (I suspect less PCB & TLB data held freeing memory & pointers + less 'thrash' in schedulers due to less process data tracking w/ memmgt improvements PLUS NOT spending time on speculative-branch execution which is a CPU/RAM/I-O killer when you right down to it on "wrong-answer branches" (what else could this boost in performance be when it SHOULD'VE slowed things down more instead)).
I posted on it here https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11574131&cid=55874623/ (on personal test 'feel' alone.) & here https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11574131&cid=55874785/ (after seeing a formal 'scientific test') early this a.m. after I got done shovelling TONS of snow (we got blasted here in the Northeast for DAYS ON END now - I hate winter but this is a 'bright-spot' & "3 cheers for MS" I say/good job on their part)) - thought I'd share the 'good tidings' for this NEW YEAR on that note!
APK
P.S.=> LASTLY - I wonder who the ASSHOLE is who DOWNMODDED last 2x I posted THIS GOOD NEWS in this thread https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11574443&cid=55874993/ & https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11574443&cid=55875051/ ?
Seriously!
After all - It's GOOD news from a bad situation - we're SAFER + FASTER unexpectedly... apk
See subject: Yes, I'm aware of what is adversely affected & I don't do VM work OR db's anymore (too many years of that & programming clientserver frontends in MSVC++, Delphi, & VB for Fortune 100-500 & smaller companies as an MIS programmer & then software engineer last few years) but you're correct though, I don't (with good reason after decades doing it professionally & no real need here @ home retired).
* INITIALLY @ least (after a bit of 'thought') I was concerned on OTHER drivers (of "non-std. design") in the IP stack https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11564899&cid=55862769/ & also VIDEO DRIVERS for gaming https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11564899&cid=55862695/ but one's in usermode for many years in NT based OS in the latter & the former is a 'hybrid design' PnP driver.
I had to think about current 'layout' architecture & function in them (it's been AGES since I've had to really).
APK
P.S.=> I was concerned that high I/O to disk *might* be adversely affected though (& I'm about to find out as this patch worked out well for me thusfar) as I am updating my hosts file & will do a system cleanup after updating Malwarebytes AV (I keep it as a manual scanner only, not resident) & doing a CCleaner run, defrag & LASTLY a backup to test out this 'theory' of mine (seeing as diskbound I/O presents a problem for the client program's branching (makes sense - block device drivers in kernelmode involved, but we'll see shortly)) - UPDATE DEFRAG & BACKUP WENT WELL (same speed (never was fast but NOT slower))... apk
See subject: Get your hooked on phonics out instead! You can't determine the meaning of words/phrases in the context of the framework they're used in obviously (you trolling little jackass dolt).
APK
P.S.=> QUESTION: What's it like being a miserable little UNIDENTIFIABLE cowardly little bitch WORM anonymous troll that "gets off" on spreading the MISERY of your own SHIT LIFE onto others as you do, motherfucker? How many times has it gotten your bony ass jaw broken?? Only a matter of time until it does (but then a PUNK like you doesn't act that way in the REAL world offline, do you??? NOPE - you wouldn't dare, bitch!)... apk
of a CEO Krzanich asshole will get away with this. I bought intel because of performance. Now I am fucked. Fuck you intel never buying your shit ever again!
Is there a difference between being "hit" with lawsuits and just having someone file one against you? I've always wondered this. Is actual physical impact involved? Because some of those briefs can be pretty thick.
The difference between socialism and capitalism is who owns the means of production. Under capitalism, private citizens own it. Under socialism, the community as a whole owns it.
At least two of those suits are never going to end well due to location. Any takers on who loses? You may disregard politics, but it has real world effects, and this is about to show them.
Will you please stop sperging all over /.?
WTF?
And no, it doesn't result in a speed up, you probably didn't have 1000 streams from lemonparty running. The only thing you feel is your microdick.
So what thread is your at kiwi farms and don't you have a third-rate hosts file to edit?
Who gives a shit how hard or expensive it is? That is irrelevant.
The fact that they tried to push a fix to the Linux kernel that would have throttled uneffected AMD processors is just more proof of their maliciousness.
Intel screwed up and now needs to pay for it, even if it costs them their business.
fuckstain
"Flaw in processors, let's organize lawsuits and get a bunch of lawyers paid!" What a culture.
I'm sure there will be a bunch of idiots cheering this on, "Yeah, let's make those bastards pay." Down the line those same people will be wondering why computer equipment is once again as expensive as it was 20 years ago. Not to worry though, that $5 check you get paid when the settlement shakes out about a decade in the future should cover the difference.