Funny how cheating... always comes back to bite you in the ass.
Only in this case it hasn't bitten Intel in the ass. It's bitten Intel's loyal customers in the ass... hard. And they are being told to shut up and bite on it.
"How is that different than the average Microsoft or Apple update?"
If the update referred to really slows down the computer's execution speed, why would that be so? It can hardly be explained as a necessary or desirable improvement, can it? If it slows down the computer in exchange for some very desirable new feature, then customers should be given the option of accepting or declining it.
If it slows down the computer in order to fix a catastrophic security weakness that should never have been there in the first place, that is unacceptable.
It's like a car manufacturer selling you a car with an advertised top speed of 120 mph and fuel economy of 50 mpg - and then someone else discovering that, due to some weakness, the car is liable to explode unless changes are made that will reduce performance to 70 mph and 35 mpg. Would that be OK?
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". - Lord Acton, 1887
A corporation like Intel represents a very great concentration of power. It has enormous wealth, and controls not only the working lives of all its employees but the computing abilities of all its customers, and their customers all the way downstream.
In a near-monoculture of Microsoft-on-Intel, any serious defects such as Meltdown and Spectre are inevitably inflicted on millions of individuals, corporations and governments, as there is little choice of supplier and most will go for the cheapest and most popular.
You seem to have a design fault: an extra inverter somewhere.
Socialism is concerned with other people and how a community can be run in the interests of all its members. In practice, there is no other way for humans to live decently. Among others, it was warmly recommended by Jesus Christ.
The people who cry "Me me me!!! It's all about ME!" are rabid ultra-capitalists - as represented, I take it, by the Republican Party. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has chosen to be a carbon copy of the Republicans rather than an alternative.
Moreover, by refusing to compensate customers Intel has implicitly admitted that the costs of its mistake were greater than those of VW's. Yet it refuses to pay compensation or replace the chips. In other words, it is dumping the huge costs of its mistake on its customers, and telling them they can like it or do the other thing.
Hundreds of people are involved in the design and verification of these things; defects are bound to slip through.
If that is the case, then they should reduce the excessive complexity until skilled experts are able to avoid defects.
Security is like virginity: indivisible. You can't be "just a little bit insecure". Corporations like Intel clearly and emphatically market their chips as incorporating security features; otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell any of them.
The correct approach is to ensure security, and then, if desired and to the extent desired, optimise for performance within boundaries rigorously observed in order to preserve security. To optimise for performance without ensuring ironclad security is hopeless - and stupid. Note that the remedies for Meltdown will more than wipe out the performance gains obtained by the ill-advised speculative execution.
The VW fraud featured software routines that detected when an emissions test was being done. The software then switched the engine to a special mode that minimised emissions, at the cost of greatly reducing fuel economy.
When the cars were driven on the road, in normal conditions, the emission-minimising feature was switched off - thus enabling the cars to deliver something close to their advertised fuel economy.
Thus the company was able to advertise the cars as both meeting government emissions standards AND achieving good fuel economy. Whereas the reality was that they could do one thing OR the other, but not both at the same time.
If they did not know it was a security risk, they should have known. This is their core expertise: designing processor chips.
Modern corporations are past masters at hiding incriminating evidence, so I don't expect to see any public proof. At the very least the decisions made were grossly irresponsible.
Like all other human beings, I am partly mental and partly physical. Why do you ask?
there's software workarounds so there's no case at all to replace defective chips.
The "software workarounds" are by no means comprehensive. They may well leave residual vulnerabilities, some of which cannot be dealt with by software patches.
the performance hit will drive an increase in sales as datacentres make up the shortfall.
This is the remark that really makes me believe you must work for Intel, hold Intel stock, or both.
Intel has committed an incredibly serious blunder in its core expertise - chip design - and sold chips with that fault for maybe 20 years. The total harm to Intel customers and all the others downstream must run into tens of billions, maybe more.
And you think that is all right ***because Intel will get yet more profits from selling yet more chips to compensate for its previous false promises?***
Intel will no doubt copy the big banks by claiming that it is "too big to fail". It would argue that it can't afford to replace all the defective chips, and so it shouldn't be forced to.
The US government regards Intel as a huge asset - just like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - and will certainly take the company's side if it faces a serious threat to its existence.
The underlying pattern is exactly the same as the VW scandal. A manufacturer tries to deliver the promised performance, and in order to do so fakes out an emissions test (VW) or builds in a highly insecure procedure (Intel).
At an even simpler level, it is just the battle between quality and quantity. VW and Intel cheated "a little" to provide the promised performance. We can expect a very great deal more of this.
You are assuming a linear projection of something that is highly unlikely to scale linearly with either time or population growth.
Had you read the first sentence of my comment, you would know that I did not assume any projection. I cited an authoritative study of present-day population.
Even if you only look at current data, it is appears that we have already passed an inflection point (the second derivative is now negative).
Since you have chosen to bring in the jargon of calculus, perhaps you also remember how to perform integration.
Maybe you should consider the possibility that, in the medium to long term, there is no way the world could support 7.5 (yes, doesn't it change fast?) billion homo sapiens.
The Overshoot Index linked to below states that the world as a whole could sustain, for the foreseeable future, about 4.3 billion people. The USA has a sustainable population of about 145 million - it is now more than 50% overpopulated, a remarkable achievement for a country that was sparsely and sustainably populated until less than 150 years ago.
I have run Windows Update several times today, but five minutes ago it was still telling me that there are no updates for my computer. (Windows 7 SP1, i7-940).
And I am running MSE, not any "third party" anti-virus.
This is normal behaviour. For many years Windows updates have not appeared here in the UK until at least 24 hours after the USA.
Slashdot Mirror
It is not just a bug, it is a fundamental issue in the way all modern CPUs are designed.
To be precise, it is a fundamental bug in the way all modern CPUs are designed.
Nice try at evasion, though.
Funny how cheating... always comes back to bite you in the ass.
Only in this case it hasn't bitten Intel in the ass. It's bitten Intel's loyal customers in the ass... hard. And they are being told to shut up and bite on it.
"How is that different than the average Microsoft or Apple update?"
If the update referred to really slows down the computer's execution speed, why would that be so? It can hardly be explained as a necessary or desirable improvement, can it? If it slows down the computer in exchange for some very desirable new feature, then customers should be given the option of accepting or declining it.
If it slows down the computer in order to fix a catastrophic security weakness that should never have been there in the first place, that is unacceptable.
It's like a car manufacturer selling you a car with an advertised top speed of 120 mph and fuel economy of 50 mpg - and then someone else discovering that, due to some weakness, the car is liable to explode unless changes are made that will reduce performance to 70 mph and 35 mpg. Would that be OK?
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". - Lord Acton, 1887
A corporation like Intel represents a very great concentration of power. It has enormous wealth, and controls not only the working lives of all its employees but the computing abilities of all its customers, and their customers all the way downstream.
In a near-monoculture of Microsoft-on-Intel, any serious defects such as Meltdown and Spectre are inevitably inflicted on millions of individuals, corporations and governments, as there is little choice of supplier and most will go for the cheapest and most popular.
You seem to have a design fault: an extra inverter somewhere.
Socialism is concerned with other people and how a community can be run in the interests of all its members. In practice, there is no other way for humans to live decently. Among others, it was warmly recommended by Jesus Christ.
The people who cry "Me me me!!! It's all about ME!" are rabid ultra-capitalists - as represented, I take it, by the Republican Party. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has chosen to be a carbon copy of the Republicans rather than an alternative.
Moreover, by refusing to compensate customers Intel has implicitly admitted that the costs of its mistake were greater than those of VW's. Yet it refuses to pay compensation or replace the chips. In other words, it is dumping the huge costs of its mistake on its customers, and telling them they can like it or do the other thing.
Hundreds of people are involved in the design and verification of these things; defects are bound to slip through.
If that is the case, then they should reduce the excessive complexity until skilled experts are able to avoid defects.
Security is like virginity: indivisible. You can't be "just a little bit insecure". Corporations like Intel clearly and emphatically market their chips as incorporating security features; otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell any of them.
The correct approach is to ensure security, and then, if desired and to the extent desired, optimise for performance within boundaries rigorously observed in order to preserve security. To optimise for performance without ensuring ironclad security is hopeless - and stupid. Note that the remedies for Meltdown will more than wipe out the performance gains obtained by the ill-advised speculative execution.
The VW fraud featured software routines that detected when an emissions test was being done. The software then switched the engine to a special mode that minimised emissions, at the cost of greatly reducing fuel economy.
When the cars were driven on the road, in normal conditions, the emission-minimising feature was switched off - thus enabling the cars to deliver something close to their advertised fuel economy.
Thus the company was able to advertise the cars as both meeting government emissions standards AND achieving good fuel economy. Whereas the reality was that they could do one thing OR the other, but not both at the same time.
...have you never heard of erratas?
"Errata". The singular is "erratum".
Good reasons to avoid a monoculture in such a vital industry, no?
you forgot to change accounts before replying to yourself
Why would I do that? You musn't judge others by yourself - AC.
Exactly!
If they did not know it was a security risk, they should have known. This is their core expertise: designing processor chips.
Modern corporations are past masters at hiding incriminating evidence, so I don't expect to see any public proof. At the very least the decisions made were grossly irresponsible.
Are you mental?
Like all other human beings, I am partly mental and partly physical. Why do you ask?
there's software workarounds so there's no case at all to replace defective chips.
The "software workarounds" are by no means comprehensive. They may well leave residual vulnerabilities, some of which cannot be dealt with by software patches.
the performance hit will drive an increase in sales as datacentres make up the shortfall.
This is the remark that really makes me believe you must work for Intel, hold Intel stock, or both.
Intel has committed an incredibly serious blunder in its core expertise - chip design - and sold chips with that fault for maybe 20 years. The total harm to Intel customers and all the others downstream must run into tens of billions, maybe more.
And you think that is all right ***because Intel will get yet more profits from selling yet more chips to compensate for its previous false promises?***
Intel will no doubt copy the big banks by claiming that it is "too big to fail". It would argue that it can't afford to replace all the defective chips, and so it shouldn't be forced to.
The US government regards Intel as a huge asset - just like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - and will certainly take the company's side if it faces a serious threat to its existence.
The underlying pattern is exactly the same as the VW scandal. A manufacturer tries to deliver the promised performance, and in order to do so fakes out an emissions test (VW) or builds in a highly insecure procedure (Intel).
At an even simpler level, it is just the battle between quality and quantity. VW and Intel cheated "a little" to provide the promised performance. We can expect a very great deal more of this.
Are you running a non-Microsoft AV package? If so you might need to install the appropriate update for it.
All done now. When I started my PC this morning Windows Update offered me the patch, and installed it quickly.
Odd that my comment should have been moderated "Off Topic", since overpopulation is obviously the main cause of pollution.
I also notice that some two dozen follow-up comments focus on that issue.
You are assuming a linear projection of something that is highly unlikely to scale linearly with either time or population growth.
Had you read the first sentence of my comment, you would know that I did not assume any projection. I cited an authoritative study of present-day population.
Even if you only look at current data, it is appears that we have already passed an inflection point (the second derivative is now negative).
Since you have chosen to bring in the jargon of calculus, perhaps you also remember how to perform integration.
Maybe you should consider the possibility that, in the medium to long term, there is no way the world could support 7.5 (yes, doesn't it change fast?) billion homo sapiens.
The Overshoot Index linked to below states that the world as a whole could sustain, for the foreseeable future, about 4.3 billion people. The USA has a sustainable population of about 145 million - it is now more than 50% overpopulated, a remarkable achievement for a country that was sparsely and sustainably populated until less than 150 years ago.
https://www.populationmatters....
Apologies. After posting the parent I went back and read the last line of TFA.
Apparently, those of us running Windows 7 in the UK are now second-class citizens in two different ways: geography and version.
I have run Windows Update several times today, but five minutes ago it was still telling me that there are no updates for my computer. (Windows 7 SP1, i7-940).
And I am running MSE, not any "third party" anti-virus.
This is normal behaviour. For many years Windows updates have not appeared here in the UK until at least 24 hours after the USA.
We invented the internet. Get over it you stupid kraut.
Please specify exactly which features of the Internet you invented. After all, we don't even know who you are.
And I'm British.
"...He is a 67-year-old male possibly of German descent..."
Come on, spit it out: be honest. "German descent" my backside.
He's AMERICAN. He's a Yank. A US citizen.
Like very many - quite likely most - of the criminals, terrorists and other nefarious individuals abusing the Internet.