Intel CEO Plays Down Meltdown and Spectre Bugs at CES 2018

[Bot]

Intel’s press conference was one of the most eagerly-awaited moments at this year’s CES show, mostly following the security vulnerabilities in the company’s chips and disclosed last week.

But contrary to what people expected, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich has spent less than two minutes discussing the hardware bugs, and a big part of the stage time granted to Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities was just a reiteration of the words the company said in the official press release.

Krzanich emphasized that Intel wanted to keep customers safe, explaining that “we have not received any information that these exploits have been used to obtain customer data.”

Oddly enough, while Intel’s priority was to ensure users were protected, the CEO refused to answer one important question: why hasn’t the company rolled out patches faster, especially given that Google informed them about the two vulnerabilities in the summer of 2016?

Read more: Intel CEO Plays Down Meltdown and Spectre Bugs at CES 2018

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Krzanich emphasized that Intel wanted to keep customers safe, explaining that “we have not received any information that these exploits have been used to obtain customer data.”

Which doesn't mean it hasn't been used. It means they just don't know about it even if it has been.

 

[Entreri]

If these exploits were used on targeted individuals, it can remain undetected.

He is certainly down playing it and he may have other motives: he is being investigated for the sale of stock, although not by the SEC yet.

 

[Kubla]

Which doesn't mean it hasn't been used. It means they just don't know about it even if it has been.

Yep, it sounds like plausible deniability 101,

Yes we had a back door, yes it could give anyone access, but we don't know what information the NSA or anyone else was taking because they did not tell us.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Yep, it sounds like plausible deniability 101,

Yes we had a back door, yes it could give anyone access, but we don't know what information the NSA or anyone else was taking because they did not tell us.

"Yes we send all your data to our private servers and yes the data has been allegedly sold but there's no evidence it was us so we just don't know. But look at Google they collect data too. SEO keywords: AMD, Microsoft, Apple and Linux"

Employee: "Boss do you think no one will care because we played it down and mentioned other vendors?"

Boss: "Yeah these people are stupid they make us rich they will be debating about Apple now"

**sips on $5,000 bottle of wine**

 

[AtlBo]

The international scope of this is going to keep it in front of everyone, especially if Intel is slow providing the firmware patch elements that should be delivered. I would have expected Intel to have started working around the clock to resolve this issue once they learned of the potential for exploit in 2016 if it surprised them. They didn't. I think this is what makes the situation so suspicious and leaves people around the world with the suspicion that maybe Intel was working with the NSA to make this back door available.

Congress in the U.S. seems like the last hope for rescuing the key American elements of the computer industry, primarily Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell, and Apple. Google could also be in this list, but their connection to the industry seems different to me in that Google is postured as more of a single threat in a standalone way than a company which might find itself party to a batch agreement with the U.S. government. What could Google provide...search/location data? This is not the scarring kind of agreement for computer users that back doors are. Now if there were an NSA back door in Google Chrome...that would be different.

Anyway, Congress hasn't shown any primary interest in fixing the glaring holes in the industry to this point, nor any concern over the immense potential for dreadful consequences if countries around the world are unable to separate American business from the American government. The closest the body has come to looking into this is their handling of e-mail issues and so on, where the lack of familiarity of Congressmen of the security issues involved in creating and maintaining a secure network and the lack of knowledge of the requirements for such is all that we have seen.

With all the other U.S. government organizations and agencies so apparently crawling around all over the world in computers, it is kind of ironic to me that the ignorance of Congressional leaders could be all that stands between the industry here in the U.S. and a "meltdown" (no pun intended) of U.S. based software/hardware companies. Because of this ignorance, Congress hasn't engaged directly in shady computing practices itself, meaning the institution can still be considered a credible source for action and for creation of security and privacy regulations. Seems a safe bet that many of the other elements of U.S. government surely have lost the ability to participate in this kind of debate or discussion. Not a pretty scenario, and I wonder what will have to happen or how bad things will get before Congress will take notice and intervene.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

Right now lawyers are handling Intel so Intel doesn't walk itself into a world wide recall.

I read the SEC prelim report that suggests the Intel CEO was made aware of this issue back in 2015. He started disclosures to sell off his stock between 2015 and the end of 2017. Someone knew more than they are leading on for sure.

Also, imagine if this was a Russia company that did this, the US would be outraged, calling for inquests, recalls , implementing bans on the firm.. The whole Kaspersky thing appears like a nothing burger more than ever, doesn't it?

I think many of us, even non-paranoids are going forward with the working assumption this was purposeful and potentially just an NSA/CIA backdoor implemented at the design phase. Linus recently commented saying either it was done on purpose or Intel Engineers are 100% idiots. I'm leaning toward purposeful.

 

[Vasudev]

Right now lawyers are handling Intel so Intel doesn't walk itself into a world wide recall.

I read the SEC prelim report that suggests the Intel CEO was made aware of this issue back in 2015. He started disclosures to sell off his stock between 2015 and the end of 2017. Someone knew more than they are leading on for sure.

Also, imagine if this was a Russia company that did this, the US would be outraged, calling for inquests, recalls , implementing bans on the firm.. The whole Kaspersky thing appears like a nothing burger more than ever, doesn't it?

I think many of us, even non-paranoids are going forward with the working assumption this was purposeful and potentially just an NSA/CIA backdoor implemented at the design phase. Linus recently commented saying either it was done on purpose or Intel Engineers are 100% idiots. I'm leaning toward purposeful.

If they recall everything, I don't want a new PC but a full refund of my PCs for wasting my time and effort researching which PC should I bought in the first place.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

If they recall everything, I don't want a new PC but a full refund of my PCs for wasting my time and effort researching which PC should I bought in the first place.

If it is a class action expect $1.43, the scummy lawyers will take the other 900 million.

 

[Entreri]

I have no doubt that the NSA has backdoors into Intel hardware and various other American companies. Snowden leaks stated as much.

Yeah, with a class action expect around a couple of dollars.

 

[Vasudev]

If it is a class action expect $1.43, the scummy lawyers will take the other 900 million.

Plus their monthly salary. Huge New year gift.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

I have no doubt that the NSA has backdoors into Intel hardware and various other American companies. Snowden leaks stated as much.

You can bet on this. The US Tech industry lost billions after Snowden disclosures. They'll continue to bleed money after this comes out. While Intel is a US company, the current CEO (sell stock before disclosure guy) has repeatedly said he feels Intel is just as much an Israeli firm as it is a US Firm. Can you imagine if our primary chip maker was Russian and this happened? We'd be rolling the tanks across the boarder, calling for congressional inquests, sanctioning them, etc. Intel must not be allowed to get a pass on this nonsense.

Personally - I don't think Intel is going to get away with this one. In fact, I don't think the x86 architecture will survive, at least in it's current state after this. The world is wising up. There is a reason 60% of EDU moved to ChromeOS. There is a reason big cloud infrastructure firms like Rackspace and Backblaze are all looking to move away from Intel and x86. Once that money starts to flow to those ARM, Cavium, Rockchips or whatever, Intel is going to have some serious problems.

 

[Solarquest]

Intel, Microsoft confess: Meltdown, Spectre may slow your servers


Analysis After spending last week insisting that the performance impact of fixing the Meltdown and Spectre CPU vulnerabilities "should not be significant," Intel on Tuesday tried to maintain that stance even as it acknowledged SYSmark tests assessing post-patch slowdowns ranging from two per cent to 14 per cent.

Reiterating that typical consumer and business usage – reading email, opening documents, and accessing digital photos – should not exhibit any performance hit from remediation, Intel said, "8th Generation Core platforms with solid state storage will see a performance impact of six per cent or less......

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

The threats from the big players are coming in. According to what I am hearing in the enterprise market, these are not empty threats. A whole lot of hardware is in the refresh cycle starting 2018 and running to 2020 and Intel is going to get hammered on that refresh from major firms. Those refreshes are when they will likely move to different architectures, retrofitting doesn't work well in the enterprise world.

Cloud companies consider Intel rivals after security flaws found
“If Intel doesn’t step up and do something to make this right then we’re going to have to punish them in the marketplace by not purchasing their products,” said Stern, whose company relies exclusively on Intel processors.

Cloud providers said swapping out previously installed Intel chips for rivals’ would be too complex, but moving forward they could expand their networks using alternatives.

 

[Vasudev]

The threats from the big players are coming in. According to what I am hearing in the enterprise market, these are not empty threats. A whole lot of hardware is in the refresh cycle starting 2018 and running to 2020 and Intel is going to get hammered on that refresh from major firms. Those refreshes are when they will likely move to different architectures, retrofitting doesn't work well in the enterprise world.

Cloud companies consider Intel rivals after security flaws found
“If Intel doesn’t step up and do something to make this right then we’re going to have to punish them in the marketplace by not purchasing their products,” said Stern, whose company relies exclusively on Intel processors.

Cloud providers said swapping out previously installed Intel chips for rivals’ would be too complex, but moving forward they could expand their networks using alternatives.

Just what AMD needed. Maybe Intel must share profit from Intel-Vega chips to cover up the loss.

 

[Faybert]

Just what AMD needed. Maybe Intel must share profit from Intel-Vega chips to cover up the loss.

Best opportunity AMD will not have

 

[509322]

I hope Intel shares go down to .50 cents a share so I can buy a train load of it.

 

[Faybert]

I hope Intel shares go down to .50 cents a share so I can buy a train load of it.

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