Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2018 11:51:36 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Mike Tancsa <mike@sentex.net>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Oliver Pinter <oliver.pinter@hardenedbsd.org>, "Zahrir, Abderrahmane" <Abderrahmane.Zahrir@ca.com> Cc: "freebsd-security@freebsd.org" <freebsd-security@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Response to Meltdown and Spectre Message-ID: <201801121851.LAA17145@mail.lariat.net> In-Reply-To: <b878f894-b005-f93b-c515-6fed466b760a@sentex.net> References: <CY1PR01MB124768D9AE4AB4D9CDAB565B8F170@CY1PR01MB1247.prod.exchangelabs.com> <CAPQ4ffsL40LsNM1deHLeSQtwAcjszqJC%2BLSd5KiSvncrPiU6jQ@mail.gmail.com> <201801121807.LAA16736@mail.lariat.net> <b878f894-b005-f93b-c515-6fed466b760a@sentex.net>
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At 11:26 AM 1/12/2018, Mike Tancsa wrote: >"The code will be selectable via a tunable which ..." Perhaps wait for >the final product. > > ---Mike Yes, I will be eagerly awaiting the final patch! In the meantime, I have located some architectural information about the latest Intel Atoms which indicates that they are not vulnerable even without the patch. As the article at https://www.anandtech.com/show/6936/intels-silvermont-architecture-revealed-getting-serious-about-mobile/2 from AnandTech (among other sources) explains, even the Atoms that do OOE only do it on wholly register-based operations. This means that operations which are accelerated and then conditionally committed later cannot affect the cache. So, no processor from the Atom family should be susceptible to Meltdown or Spectre, and the extra security measures can safely be turned off automatically on all of them. This would be a big help to those of us who would otherwise have to recompile the kernel and/or set a special tunable. --Brett Glass
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