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Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion

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Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #38 on: January 12, 2018, 09:02:29 AM »
 

newtusmaximus

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So are we safe in  continuing to update LL; i.e no chance of "junking" our older hardware??
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Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #37 on: January 12, 2018, 08:55:59 AM »
 

trinidad

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No comprehensive info on that yet. MS patches have cooked a bunch of different boards already, and withdrew some patches. Early losses will be unpredictable, about like a blind machine gunner firing into a crowd.

TC
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #36 on: January 12, 2018, 08:49:24 AM »
 

newtusmaximus

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Any idea which Intel chips are considered to be vulnerable to updates.?
2006 - HP DC7700p ultraslim Desktop Intel 6300 cpu  4GB Ram LL3.8 64bit.
2007 - Fujitsu Siemens V3405 Laptop  2 GB Ram LL3.6 32bit. Now 32bit Debian 9 + nonfree.
2006 - Fujitsu Siemens Si1520 Laptop Intel T720 cpu 3GB Ram   LL5.6 64 Bit
2014 - Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E754 Intel i7 4712MQ 16GB Ram LL6.6
2003 - RETIRED Toshiba Satellite Pro A10 1 GB RAM LL2.8 32bit
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #35 on: January 12, 2018, 08:10:29 AM »
 

Jerry

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IMHO I think it may turn out to be the biggest tech bloodbath in history by the end of the year...

TC 

It already is.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #34 on: January 12, 2018, 07:48:33 AM »
 

trinidad

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Few new things:
Have not tested this but the script should work on normal Linux OS. Those of you who want to check kernels may want to try it.

https://github.com/speed47/spectre-meltdown-checker

So far it seems that the version of the LTS 4.4 kernel 109.132 does not brick some older boards the way .108 does. I am running it on a six year old Intel Dell. Will be looking at Qemu this afternoon to see how broken it is. MS patches have been bricking things all over the place and literally locking Windows 7 and 10 on older harware to junk. If you are on Windows 7 do NOT install the patch. The patching for this mess in general is running below 50% success rate on older hardware. Best to be patient. This whiz kids who published this worked from a 2005 research paper to begin with. The generation gap is obvious concerning this. If you are just a home user, and do not maintain a server presence, I wouldn't bother with a patch just yet. This vulnerability affects the core infrastructure of the web and there is little you can do about that. IMHO I think it may turn out to be the biggest tech bloodbath in history by the end of the year with a myriad of on again off again failed fixes. If you are just a home user take heart, you are a consumer, and that is what built it all.

TC 
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #33 on: January 11, 2018, 05:28:06 PM »
 

trinidad

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Certainly not a panic issue for home users of any OS, at least in the present definition of what security is. There is no doubt that it could prove to be a real pain down the road (depending on the provider) for small businesses using older Intel hardware who have purchased virtual space on a server, in that there is a real possibilty that their hardware will no longer be able to log onto their server space which is likely to have the Intel firmware updates, kind of like the changes made to Firefox last summer involving secure connections. If there is no Intel firmware update available for your hardware you may find yourself not able to log onto virtual server space you have paid for that has the Intel firmware updates. That is just the first problem users of Ubuntu, Windows 7, 8.1, Debian, Mac OS, and others running on Intel older hardware will run up against. It is a security issue for industry leaders using Intel hardware to run big server arrays. People like RHEL, Suse Enterprise, Microsoft, and Ubuntu and Debian as well. However, and it's a big however, I would argue at this point that is a rush toward an appearance of better security, but not as grave as it seems in the news. Furthermore given the security measures available to most good administrators, it is a highly unlikely hack unless of course you operate with seriously unvetted administrators. The winners here are likely to turn out to be Intel and Microsoft in the end, given the planned obselescence model of business they use. Want to use our Intel servers? Upgrade your firmware. It seems too brilliant of a business ploy to be anything other than a business ploy. That aside I am not satisfied at all with the mitigations in Linux for meltdown as I and a lot of other people think the action is too extreme, given the neccessity of then having to deal with propietary firmware updates. We all need to take a deep breath here and take the time to study the mitigations thorougly. It has been proved time and time again that computing security is best enabled via the open source community, period.

TC         
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #32 on: January 11, 2018, 10:45:49 AM »
 

TheDead

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I read one article referred to me about the whole issue but it only mentions Intel/AMD "Server" CPUs and ARM CPUs. Atoms are not affected(?).
@trinidad , from your readings, are standard desktop/laptop CPUs affected are not?
This whole issue went kaboom all over the place... hard to find clear info.

Nothing better for something to get popular than big companies trying to keep it quiet. ;)

Cheers!
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Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #31 on: January 11, 2018, 10:30:24 AM »
 

newtusmaximus

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Tks Trinidad.  For the uninitiated, such as myself
Does this Virtual Server vulnerability mean?
a) Contacting/using cloud storage is a possible vulnerability.
B) Connection to online banking  could be vulnerable
c) Ditto online payment transaction such as Amazon, Paypal etc even though they are supposedly "locked" = https://
d) The connection process to "home" wifi is vulnerable  even with proper WPA/WPA2 activated?

Is this another case of Year 2000  "panic" or a realistic potential threat?

Thanks
« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 10:34:18 AM by newtusmaximus »
2006 - HP DC7700p ultraslim Desktop Intel 6300 cpu  4GB Ram LL3.8 64bit.
2007 - Fujitsu Siemens V3405 Laptop  2 GB Ram LL3.6 32bit. Now 32bit Debian 9 + nonfree.
2006 - Fujitsu Siemens Si1520 Laptop Intel T720 cpu 3GB Ram   LL5.6 64 Bit
2014 - Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E754 Intel i7 4712MQ 16GB Ram LL6.6
2003 - RETIRED Toshiba Satellite Pro A10 1 GB RAM LL2.8 32bit
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #30 on: January 11, 2018, 08:51:08 AM »
 

Jerry

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Thanks TC :)
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #29 on: January 11, 2018, 07:39:47 AM »
 

trinidad

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Kernel 4.4.0-109.132 is out for LTS. Fix for meltdown began at .131 I believe. This is not a complete fix all for Ubuntu OS. Older hardware will not respond to the update in many cases because of incomplete firmware. This whole thing is an ugly ugly mess for Debian. The main issue will be for people who run older hardware without firmware updates, and connect to virtual server instances that have firmware updates. They may find they cannot connect to their server. The exploit 1 of spectre is already mitigated in firefox but exploit 2 will not be fully mitigated for quite some time and people with older hardware may find themselves out of luck. If you are running anit-virus your provider will have had to issue a flag to your system to install the changes. I have some reticence about installing the meltdown mitigations at all, given other issues with Intel. I am slowly working my way through all the documentation on the exploits, but a cursory examination makes me a little itchy, given the impact on some common server administration tools, and given Intels other issues I am not so sure that the mitigation for meltdown will not open a wider door for specter exploit 2 due to a lack of pointer obfuscation. I don't think there's any need for home users to rush into this at this point other than the virtual server connection issues. Let the industry giants worry about it, and let Debian run its course through the mess the Debian way -- slowly via the community. There may be a worst case scenario for all of this akin to emmision testing for automobiles.

TC
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #28 on: January 11, 2018, 06:21:59 AM »
 

Vera

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Ubuntu plan to release Kernel updates early next week, in or around the 9th.

Do we have any news on the status of Ubuntu kernel updates to fix this issue?
Using Linux Lite for everything now. I put it on my desktop and my laptop. Woohoo!
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #27 on: January 08, 2018, 03:21:33 PM »
 

richtea

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Krzanich talks his book, but will he walk the (perp) walk?


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-08/it-doesnt-look-good-intel-ceo-jeopardy-selling-stock-after-learning-staggering-flaw

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Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #26 on: January 08, 2018, 11:12:41 AM »
 

elelme

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Interesting catch! Thanks, Trinidad, for both of these.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #25 on: January 08, 2018, 07:25:26 AM »
 

trinidad

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Class Action investigation against Intel, the first taker.

https://www.bgandg.com/intc

A pdf copy of the action is available on the page.

From 2005 MIT:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-823-computer-system-architecture-fall-2005/lecture-notes/l13_brnchpred.pdf

TC
« Last Edit: January 08, 2018, 08:15:32 AM by trinidad »
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.
 

Re: Meltdown & Spectre Information and Discussion
« Reply #24 on: January 08, 2018, 02:53:24 AM »
 

kissbaby3

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 8)  i am not too freaked out by all this , a flaw since what ?, 1995 ?, wow, ok. i suffered viruses through the years since windows 98SE, so again, not to freaked out by this .

 ???  any ways , has Linux Lite released some updates on this issue for Linux lite 3.6 ?.

my windows 10 machine has been fixed by me, ha  ha , it was a outdated driver issue, now ready to bring back down my Linux machine from upstairs and plug it back in........ i miss my Linux.
windows is for my Husband, he so far has no problems with my machine , but he is a cave man and needs  more how to attention.............
 

 

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