cypherpunks

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

keep it steady? did you neglect to install the shock absorbing plate?

photo of a cardboard box packaging for SONY DISCMAN WITH COMPLETE CAR MOUNTING KITpackage has this text on top of a photo of the discman and accessories listed:8 HOURS CONTINUOUS PLAY BACK WITH 2 x AA BATTERIESRECHARGEABLE BATTERY CAPABLE (BP-DM10; OPTION)1bit DAC AVLS MEGABASSCOMPLETE CAR CONNECTING KIT SUPPLIEDSHOCK ABSORBING PLATECAR CASSETTE ADAPTOR ENABLES CD PLAYBACK THROUGH YOURCAR CASSETTE DECKCAR CIGARETTE LIGHTER POWER CORD INCLUDEDbeneath the English-language text is this smaller text in Spanish:8 HORAS DE REPRODUCCIÓN CONTINUA CON 2 PILAS AAJUEGO DE CONEXIÓN PARA AUTOMOVILES SUMINISTRADOacross the bottom right corner it says:EASY INSTALLATION

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I think it depends which side of the debate one is on?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
$ systemd-analyze calendar tomorrow
Failed to parse calendar specification 'tomorrow': Invalid argument
Hint: this expression is a valid timestamp. Use 'systemd-analyze timestamp "tomorrow"' instead?
$ systemd-analyze timestamp tuesday
Failed to parse "tuesday": Invalid argument
Hint: this expression is a valid calendar specification. Use 'systemd-analyze calendar "tuesday"' instead?

ಠ_ಠ

$ for day in Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun; do TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar "$day 02-29"|tail -2; done
    Next elapse: Mon 2044-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 19 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Tue 2028-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 3 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Wed 2040-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 15 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Thu 2052-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 27 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Fri 2036-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 11 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Sat 2048-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 23 years 4 months left
    Next elapse: Sun 2032-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 7 years 4 months left

still image from "Zach Galifianakis Math" gif, with Zach looking contemplative with math notation floating in front of his face

(It checks out.)

Surprisingly its calendar specification parser actually allows for 31 days in every month:

$ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-29' && echo OK || echo not OK
  Original form: 02-29
Normalized form: *-02-29 00:00:00
    Next elapse: Tue 2028-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 3 years 4 months left
OK
$ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-30' && echo OK || echo not OK
  Original form: 02-30
Normalized form: *-02-30 00:00:00
    Next elapse: never           
OK
$ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-31' && echo OK || echo not OK
  Original form: 02-31
Normalized form: *-02-31 00:00:00
    Next elapse: never           
OK
$ TZ=UTC systemd-analyze calendar '02-32' && echo OK || echo not OK
Failed to parse calendar specification '02-32': Invalid argument
not OK
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Funny that blog calls it a "failed attempt at a backdoor" while neglecting to mention that the grsec post (which it does link to and acknowledges is the source of the story) had been updated months prior to explicitly refute that characterization:

5/22/2020 Update: This kind of update should not have been necessary, but due to irresponsible journalists and the nature of social media, it is important to make some things perfectly clear:

Nowhere did we claim this was anything more than a trivially exploitable vulnerability. It is not a backdoor or an attempted backdoor, the term does not appear elsewhere in this blog at all; any suggestion of the sort was fabricated by irresponsible journalists who did not contact us and do not speak for us.

There is no chance this code would have passed review and be merged. No one can push or force code upstream.

This code is not characteristic of the quality of other code contributed upstream by Huawei. Contrary to baseless assertions from some journalists, this is not Huawei's first attempt at contributing to the kernel, in fact they've been a frequent contributor for some time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Wasn’t Huawei trying to put a Backdoor into linux?

as far as i know, that has not happened.

what makes you think it did?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

After a minute of research I'm inclined to believe Godzilla egg-laying only happened in Roland Emmerich's 1998 film.

Here is some contemporary reporting about it: https://www.chicagotribune.com/1998/05/19/godzilla-lays-an-egg-does-this-surprise-you/

Big, buff and bodacious, he’s so cool he can even reproduce himself–or herself. Turns out, Godzilla’s a hermaphrodite.

Consistent with the mythology, this giant lizard is a mutant by-product of nuclear radiation. As the only member of its species to have survived a bomb test in French Polynesia, Godzilla must assume male and female reproductive functions to maintain the lineage.

Why Godzilla feels compelled to travel all the way to Manhattan to lay its eggs is a mystery not clearly explained in the script, but, like any Sinatra fan, the monster probably thought, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” So, it was off to New York, New York, where–like the Knicks–the creature lays a lot of eggs in Madison Square Garden.

see also: https://fictionhorizon.com/how-does-godzilla-reproduce/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

fremdscham++ 😬

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

The headline should mention that they're breaking 22-bit RSA, but then it would get a lot less clicks.

A different group of Chinese researchers set what I think is the current record when they factored a 48-bit number with a quantum computer two years ago: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.12372

I guess the news here is that now they've reached 22 bits using the quantum annealing technique which works on D-Wave's commercially-available quantum computers? That approach was previously able to factor an 18-bit number in 2018.

🥂 to the researchers, but 👎 to the clickbait headline writers. This is still nowhere near being a CRQC (cryptanalytically-relevant quantum computer).

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21476364

from The Register:

A Chinese industry group has accused Intel of backdooring its CPUs, in addition to other questionable security practices while calling for an investigation into the chipmaker, claiming its products pose "serious risks to national security."

The Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC), in a lengthy post on its WeChat account on Wednesday described Intel's chips as being riddled with vulnerabilities, adding that the American company's "major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers."

The CSAC also accused Intel of embedding a backdoor "in almost all" of its CPUs since 2008 as part of a "next-generation security defense system" developed by the US National Security Agency.

This allowed Uncle Sam to "build an ideal monitoring environment where only the NSA is protected and everyone else is 'naked,'" the post continued. "This poses a huge security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China," the industry group claims.

The infosec org also recommends the Cyberspace Administration of China open an investigation into the security of Intel's products sold in the country "to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers."

Intel did not immediately respond to The Register's inquiries.


Here is a machine translation (via google translate) of CSAC's post:

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates. Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

China Cyberspace Security Association October 16, 2024 09:02

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates

Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

  1. Frequent security vulnerabilities

In August 2023, Intel CPU was exposed to the Downfall vulnerability, which is a CPU transient execution side channel vulnerability. It uses the Gather instruction in its AVX2 or AVX-512 instruction set to obtain sensitive data such as keys, user information, and key parameters previously stored in a specific vector register buffer. The vulnerability affects Intel's 6th to 11th generation Core, Celeron, and Pentium series CPUs, as well as 1st to 4th generation Xeon processors. In fact, as early as 2022, researchers reported the vulnerability to Intel, but Intel, knowing the existence of the vulnerability, neither acknowledged it nor took effective action. It continued to sell products with vulnerabilities until the vulnerability was publicly reported, and Intel was forced to take vulnerability repair measures. Five victims have filed a class action lawsuit against Intel in November 2023 in the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern California in the name of themselves and representatives of "CPU consumers across the United States".

Coincidentally, in November 2023, Google researchers disclosed that Intel CPUs have a high-risk vulnerability, Reptar. Exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can not only obtain sensitive data such as personal accounts, card numbers and passwords in the system in a multi-tenant virtualization environment, but also cause the physical system to hang or crash, resulting in denial of service for other systems and tenants it carries.

Since 2024, Intel CPUs have successively exposed vulnerabilities such as GhostRace, NativeBHI, and Indirector. Intel's major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers.

  1. Poor reliability and indifference to user complaints

Since the end of 2023, a large number of users have reported that crashes occur when using Intel's 13th and 14th generation Core i9 series CPUs to play specific games. Game manufacturers have even added pop-up processing in the game to warn users who use these CPUs. Dylan Browne, Unreal Engine Supervisor and Visual Effects Manager at visual effects studio ModelFarm, posted that the failure rate of computers using Intel processors in his company was as high as 50%.

With concentrated user feedback and no way to cover up, Intel finally had to admit that there were stability issues with its products and issued a so-called preliminary investigation report, attributing the problem to the motherboard manufacturer setting too high a voltage. However, it was immediately refuted by the motherboard manufacturer, who stated that the motherboards it produced were developed according to the data provided by Intel for BIOS programs, and the cause of the crash was not the motherboard manufacturer. In July 2024, Intel issued a statement to explain the frequent CPU crashes, admitting that due to the incorrect microcode algorithm sending too high a voltage request to the processor, some 13th and 14th generation processors became unstable.

Frequent crashes occurred at the end of 2023, and Intel only identified the problem and provided an update program half a year later, and the mitigation measures given within half a year did not work, which fully reflected that Intel did not actively and honestly face the problems when facing its own product defects, but simply ignored, shirked and procrastinated. Some professionals speculate that the root cause is that Intel has actively sacrificed product stability in order to gain performance improvements and regain competitive advantages. It is also reported that the US law firm "Abington Cole + Ellery" has begun investigating the instability of Intel's 13th and 14th generation processors, and will file a class action lawsuit on behalf of end users.

  1. Under the guise of remote management, the real purpose is to monitor users

Intel, together with HP and other manufacturers, jointly designed the IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) technical specification, claiming that it is to monitor the physical health characteristics of the server, and technically manages and controls the server through the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) module. The BMC module allows users to remotely manage devices, and can realize functions such as starting the computer, reinstalling the operating system, and mounting ISO images. The module has also been exposed to high-risk vulnerabilities (such as CVE-2019-11181), resulting in a large number of servers around the world facing great security risks of being attacked and controlled.

In addition, Intel also integrates third-party open source components with serious vulnerabilities in its products. Taking the Intel M10JNPSB server motherboard as an example, this product supports IPMI management and is currently out of after-sales service. The last firmware update package was released on December 13, 2022. Analysis shows that its web server is lighttpd, with version number 1.4.35, which is actually the version of March 12, 2014. At that time, the latest version of lighttpd had been upgraded to 1.4.66. The difference between the two is 9 years, which is surprisingly large. This irresponsible behavior puts the network and data security of the majority of server users at great risk.

  1. Hidden backdoors endanger network and information security

The autonomous running subsystem ME (Management Engine) developed by Intel has been embedded in almost all Intel CPUs since 2008. It is part of its vigorously promoted AMT (Active Management Technology), allowing system administrators to perform tasks remotely. As long as this function is activated, the computer can be accessed remotely regardless of whether the operating system is installed. Based on the redirection technology of peripherals such as optical drives, floppy drives, and USB, it can achieve the effect of physical contact with the user's computer. Hardware security expert Damien Zammit pointed out that ME is a backdoor that can fully access the memory, bypass the operating system firewall, send and receive network packets without the operating system user's knowledge, and users cannot disable ME. Intel AMT (Active Management Technology) based on ME technology was exposed to have a high-risk vulnerability (CVE-2017-5689) in 2017. Attackers can bypass the authentication mechanism and log in to the system directly to obtain the highest authority by setting the response field in the login parameters to empty.

In August 2017, Russian security experts Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy found a hidden switch suspected to be set by the NSA (National Security Agency) through reverse engineering technology. The switch is located in the HAP bit in the PCHSTERP0 field, but the flag bit is not recorded in the official document. Dramatically, HAP is the full name of High Assurance Platform, which belongs to the NSA-initiated project to build a next-generation security defense system.

If the NSA directly shuts down the ME system by turning on the hidden switch of the HAP bit, and at the same time all other Intel CPUs in the world run the ME system by default, it is equivalent to the NSA being able to build an ideal monitoring environment where only it is protected and everyone else is "naked". This poses a great security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China. At present, the software and hardware on the ME are closed source, and its security mainly relies on Intel's unilateral commitment, but the facts show that Intel's commitment is pale and unconvincing. Using Intel products poses serious risks to national security.

  1. It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review

According to reports, nearly a quarter of Intel's global annual revenue of more than US$50 billion comes from the Chinese market. In 2021, Intel's CPU accounted for about 77% of the domestic desktop market and about 81% of the notebook market; in 2022, Intel's x86 server market share in China was about 91%. It can be said that Intel has made a lot of money in China, but the company has continued to do things that harm China's interests and threaten China's national security.

Previously, the US government passed the so-called "Chips and Science Act" to unreasonably exclude and suppress China's semiconductor industry. Intel is the biggest beneficiary of this bill. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger successfully tied Intel to the US government and became the largest partner of the US chip strategy. It not only received $8.5 billion in direct subsidies, but also $11 billion in low-interest loans.

In order to please the US government, Intel actively took a stand to suppress China on the so-called Xinjiang-related issues, requiring its suppliers not to use any labor, purchase products or services from the Xinjiang region. In its financial report, it even listed Taiwan Province on a par with China, the United States, and Singapore, and took the initiative to cut off supply and service to Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. This is a typical "holding the bowl to eat, and putting down the bowl to smash the pot".

It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review of Intel's products sold in China to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21476364

from The Register:

A Chinese industry group has accused Intel of backdooring its CPUs, in addition to other questionable security practices while calling for an investigation into the chipmaker, claiming its products pose "serious risks to national security."

The Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC), in a lengthy post on its WeChat account on Wednesday described Intel's chips as being riddled with vulnerabilities, adding that the American company's "major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers."

The CSAC also accused Intel of embedding a backdoor "in almost all" of its CPUs since 2008 as part of a "next-generation security defense system" developed by the US National Security Agency.

This allowed Uncle Sam to "build an ideal monitoring environment where only the NSA is protected and everyone else is 'naked,'" the post continued. "This poses a huge security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China," the industry group claims.

The infosec org also recommends the Cyberspace Administration of China open an investigation into the security of Intel's products sold in the country "to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers."

Intel did not immediately respond to The Register's inquiries.


Here is a machine translation (via google translate) of CSAC's post:

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates. Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

China Cyberspace Security Association October 16, 2024 09:02

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates

Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

  1. Frequent security vulnerabilities

In August 2023, Intel CPU was exposed to the Downfall vulnerability, which is a CPU transient execution side channel vulnerability. It uses the Gather instruction in its AVX2 or AVX-512 instruction set to obtain sensitive data such as keys, user information, and key parameters previously stored in a specific vector register buffer. The vulnerability affects Intel's 6th to 11th generation Core, Celeron, and Pentium series CPUs, as well as 1st to 4th generation Xeon processors. In fact, as early as 2022, researchers reported the vulnerability to Intel, but Intel, knowing the existence of the vulnerability, neither acknowledged it nor took effective action. It continued to sell products with vulnerabilities until the vulnerability was publicly reported, and Intel was forced to take vulnerability repair measures. Five victims have filed a class action lawsuit against Intel in November 2023 in the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern California in the name of themselves and representatives of "CPU consumers across the United States".

Coincidentally, in November 2023, Google researchers disclosed that Intel CPUs have a high-risk vulnerability, Reptar. Exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can not only obtain sensitive data such as personal accounts, card numbers and passwords in the system in a multi-tenant virtualization environment, but also cause the physical system to hang or crash, resulting in denial of service for other systems and tenants it carries.

Since 2024, Intel CPUs have successively exposed vulnerabilities such as GhostRace, NativeBHI, and Indirector. Intel's major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers.

  1. Poor reliability and indifference to user complaints

Since the end of 2023, a large number of users have reported that crashes occur when using Intel's 13th and 14th generation Core i9 series CPUs to play specific games. Game manufacturers have even added pop-up processing in the game to warn users who use these CPUs. Dylan Browne, Unreal Engine Supervisor and Visual Effects Manager at visual effects studio ModelFarm, posted that the failure rate of computers using Intel processors in his company was as high as 50%.

With concentrated user feedback and no way to cover up, Intel finally had to admit that there were stability issues with its products and issued a so-called preliminary investigation report, attributing the problem to the motherboard manufacturer setting too high a voltage. However, it was immediately refuted by the motherboard manufacturer, who stated that the motherboards it produced were developed according to the data provided by Intel for BIOS programs, and the cause of the crash was not the motherboard manufacturer. In July 2024, Intel issued a statement to explain the frequent CPU crashes, admitting that due to the incorrect microcode algorithm sending too high a voltage request to the processor, some 13th and 14th generation processors became unstable.

Frequent crashes occurred at the end of 2023, and Intel only identified the problem and provided an update program half a year later, and the mitigation measures given within half a year did not work, which fully reflected that Intel did not actively and honestly face the problems when facing its own product defects, but simply ignored, shirked and procrastinated. Some professionals speculate that the root cause is that Intel has actively sacrificed product stability in order to gain performance improvements and regain competitive advantages. It is also reported that the US law firm "Abington Cole + Ellery" has begun investigating the instability of Intel's 13th and 14th generation processors, and will file a class action lawsuit on behalf of end users.

  1. Under the guise of remote management, the real purpose is to monitor users

Intel, together with HP and other manufacturers, jointly designed the IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) technical specification, claiming that it is to monitor the physical health characteristics of the server, and technically manages and controls the server through the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) module. The BMC module allows users to remotely manage devices, and can realize functions such as starting the computer, reinstalling the operating system, and mounting ISO images. The module has also been exposed to high-risk vulnerabilities (such as CVE-2019-11181), resulting in a large number of servers around the world facing great security risks of being attacked and controlled.

In addition, Intel also integrates third-party open source components with serious vulnerabilities in its products. Taking the Intel M10JNPSB server motherboard as an example, this product supports IPMI management and is currently out of after-sales service. The last firmware update package was released on December 13, 2022. Analysis shows that its web server is lighttpd, with version number 1.4.35, which is actually the version of March 12, 2014. At that time, the latest version of lighttpd had been upgraded to 1.4.66. The difference between the two is 9 years, which is surprisingly large. This irresponsible behavior puts the network and data security of the majority of server users at great risk.

  1. Hidden backdoors endanger network and information security

The autonomous running subsystem ME (Management Engine) developed by Intel has been embedded in almost all Intel CPUs since 2008. It is part of its vigorously promoted AMT (Active Management Technology), allowing system administrators to perform tasks remotely. As long as this function is activated, the computer can be accessed remotely regardless of whether the operating system is installed. Based on the redirection technology of peripherals such as optical drives, floppy drives, and USB, it can achieve the effect of physical contact with the user's computer. Hardware security expert Damien Zammit pointed out that ME is a backdoor that can fully access the memory, bypass the operating system firewall, send and receive network packets without the operating system user's knowledge, and users cannot disable ME. Intel AMT (Active Management Technology) based on ME technology was exposed to have a high-risk vulnerability (CVE-2017-5689) in 2017. Attackers can bypass the authentication mechanism and log in to the system directly to obtain the highest authority by setting the response field in the login parameters to empty.

In August 2017, Russian security experts Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy found a hidden switch suspected to be set by the NSA (National Security Agency) through reverse engineering technology. The switch is located in the HAP bit in the PCHSTERP0 field, but the flag bit is not recorded in the official document. Dramatically, HAP is the full name of High Assurance Platform, which belongs to the NSA-initiated project to build a next-generation security defense system.

If the NSA directly shuts down the ME system by turning on the hidden switch of the HAP bit, and at the same time all other Intel CPUs in the world run the ME system by default, it is equivalent to the NSA being able to build an ideal monitoring environment where only it is protected and everyone else is "naked". This poses a great security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China. At present, the software and hardware on the ME are closed source, and its security mainly relies on Intel's unilateral commitment, but the facts show that Intel's commitment is pale and unconvincing. Using Intel products poses serious risks to national security.

  1. It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review

According to reports, nearly a quarter of Intel's global annual revenue of more than US$50 billion comes from the Chinese market. In 2021, Intel's CPU accounted for about 77% of the domestic desktop market and about 81% of the notebook market; in 2022, Intel's x86 server market share in China was about 91%. It can be said that Intel has made a lot of money in China, but the company has continued to do things that harm China's interests and threaten China's national security.

Previously, the US government passed the so-called "Chips and Science Act" to unreasonably exclude and suppress China's semiconductor industry. Intel is the biggest beneficiary of this bill. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger successfully tied Intel to the US government and became the largest partner of the US chip strategy. It not only received $8.5 billion in direct subsidies, but also $11 billion in low-interest loans.

In order to please the US government, Intel actively took a stand to suppress China on the so-called Xinjiang-related issues, requiring its suppliers not to use any labor, purchase products or services from the Xinjiang region. In its financial report, it even listed Taiwan Province on a par with China, the United States, and Singapore, and took the initiative to cut off supply and service to Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. This is a typical "holding the bowl to eat, and putting down the bowl to smash the pot".

It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review of Intel's products sold in China to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers.

 

from The Register:

A Chinese industry group has accused Intel of backdooring its CPUs, in addition to other questionable security practices while calling for an investigation into the chipmaker, claiming its products pose "serious risks to national security."

The Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC), in a lengthy post on its WeChat account on Wednesday described Intel's chips as being riddled with vulnerabilities, adding that the American company's "major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers."

The CSAC also accused Intel of embedding a backdoor "in almost all" of its CPUs since 2008 as part of a "next-generation security defense system" developed by the US National Security Agency.

This allowed Uncle Sam to "build an ideal monitoring environment where only the NSA is protected and everyone else is 'naked,'" the post continued. "This poses a huge security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China," the industry group claims.

The infosec org also recommends the Cyberspace Administration of China open an investigation into the security of Intel's products sold in the country "to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers."

Intel did not immediately respond to The Register's inquiries.


Here is a machine translation (via google translate) of CSAC's post:

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates. Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

China Cyberspace Security Association October 16, 2024 09:02

Frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates

Intel product cybersecurity risks should be systematically checked

  1. Frequent security vulnerabilities

In August 2023, Intel CPU was exposed to the Downfall vulnerability, which is a CPU transient execution side channel vulnerability. It uses the Gather instruction in its AVX2 or AVX-512 instruction set to obtain sensitive data such as keys, user information, and key parameters previously stored in a specific vector register buffer. The vulnerability affects Intel's 6th to 11th generation Core, Celeron, and Pentium series CPUs, as well as 1st to 4th generation Xeon processors. In fact, as early as 2022, researchers reported the vulnerability to Intel, but Intel, knowing the existence of the vulnerability, neither acknowledged it nor took effective action. It continued to sell products with vulnerabilities until the vulnerability was publicly reported, and Intel was forced to take vulnerability repair measures. Five victims have filed a class action lawsuit against Intel in November 2023 in the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern California in the name of themselves and representatives of "CPU consumers across the United States".

Coincidentally, in November 2023, Google researchers disclosed that Intel CPUs have a high-risk vulnerability, Reptar. Exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can not only obtain sensitive data such as personal accounts, card numbers and passwords in the system in a multi-tenant virtualization environment, but also cause the physical system to hang or crash, resulting in denial of service for other systems and tenants it carries.

Since 2024, Intel CPUs have successively exposed vulnerabilities such as GhostRace, NativeBHI, and Indirector. Intel's major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers.

  1. Poor reliability and indifference to user complaints

Since the end of 2023, a large number of users have reported that crashes occur when using Intel's 13th and 14th generation Core i9 series CPUs to play specific games. Game manufacturers have even added pop-up processing in the game to warn users who use these CPUs. Dylan Browne, Unreal Engine Supervisor and Visual Effects Manager at visual effects studio ModelFarm, posted that the failure rate of computers using Intel processors in his company was as high as 50%.

With concentrated user feedback and no way to cover up, Intel finally had to admit that there were stability issues with its products and issued a so-called preliminary investigation report, attributing the problem to the motherboard manufacturer setting too high a voltage. However, it was immediately refuted by the motherboard manufacturer, who stated that the motherboards it produced were developed according to the data provided by Intel for BIOS programs, and the cause of the crash was not the motherboard manufacturer. In July 2024, Intel issued a statement to explain the frequent CPU crashes, admitting that due to the incorrect microcode algorithm sending too high a voltage request to the processor, some 13th and 14th generation processors became unstable.

Frequent crashes occurred at the end of 2023, and Intel only identified the problem and provided an update program half a year later, and the mitigation measures given within half a year did not work, which fully reflected that Intel did not actively and honestly face the problems when facing its own product defects, but simply ignored, shirked and procrastinated. Some professionals speculate that the root cause is that Intel has actively sacrificed product stability in order to gain performance improvements and regain competitive advantages. It is also reported that the US law firm "Abington Cole + Ellery" has begun investigating the instability of Intel's 13th and 14th generation processors, and will file a class action lawsuit on behalf of end users.

  1. Under the guise of remote management, the real purpose is to monitor users

Intel, together with HP and other manufacturers, jointly designed the IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) technical specification, claiming that it is to monitor the physical health characteristics of the server, and technically manages and controls the server through the BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) module. The BMC module allows users to remotely manage devices, and can realize functions such as starting the computer, reinstalling the operating system, and mounting ISO images. The module has also been exposed to high-risk vulnerabilities (such as CVE-2019-11181), resulting in a large number of servers around the world facing great security risks of being attacked and controlled.

In addition, Intel also integrates third-party open source components with serious vulnerabilities in its products. Taking the Intel M10JNPSB server motherboard as an example, this product supports IPMI management and is currently out of after-sales service. The last firmware update package was released on December 13, 2022. Analysis shows that its web server is lighttpd, with version number 1.4.35, which is actually the version of March 12, 2014. At that time, the latest version of lighttpd had been upgraded to 1.4.66. The difference between the two is 9 years, which is surprisingly large. This irresponsible behavior puts the network and data security of the majority of server users at great risk.

  1. Hidden backdoors endanger network and information security

The autonomous running subsystem ME (Management Engine) developed by Intel has been embedded in almost all Intel CPUs since 2008. It is part of its vigorously promoted AMT (Active Management Technology), allowing system administrators to perform tasks remotely. As long as this function is activated, the computer can be accessed remotely regardless of whether the operating system is installed. Based on the redirection technology of peripherals such as optical drives, floppy drives, and USB, it can achieve the effect of physical contact with the user's computer. Hardware security expert Damien Zammit pointed out that ME is a backdoor that can fully access the memory, bypass the operating system firewall, send and receive network packets without the operating system user's knowledge, and users cannot disable ME. Intel AMT (Active Management Technology) based on ME technology was exposed to have a high-risk vulnerability (CVE-2017-5689) in 2017. Attackers can bypass the authentication mechanism and log in to the system directly to obtain the highest authority by setting the response field in the login parameters to empty.

In August 2017, Russian security experts Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy found a hidden switch suspected to be set by the NSA (National Security Agency) through reverse engineering technology. The switch is located in the HAP bit in the PCHSTERP0 field, but the flag bit is not recorded in the official document. Dramatically, HAP is the full name of High Assurance Platform, which belongs to the NSA-initiated project to build a next-generation security defense system.

If the NSA directly shuts down the ME system by turning on the hidden switch of the HAP bit, and at the same time all other Intel CPUs in the world run the ME system by default, it is equivalent to the NSA being able to build an ideal monitoring environment where only it is protected and everyone else is "naked". This poses a great security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China. At present, the software and hardware on the ME are closed source, and its security mainly relies on Intel's unilateral commitment, but the facts show that Intel's commitment is pale and unconvincing. Using Intel products poses serious risks to national security.

  1. It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review

According to reports, nearly a quarter of Intel's global annual revenue of more than US$50 billion comes from the Chinese market. In 2021, Intel's CPU accounted for about 77% of the domestic desktop market and about 81% of the notebook market; in 2022, Intel's x86 server market share in China was about 91%. It can be said that Intel has made a lot of money in China, but the company has continued to do things that harm China's interests and threaten China's national security.

Previously, the US government passed the so-called "Chips and Science Act" to unreasonably exclude and suppress China's semiconductor industry. Intel is the biggest beneficiary of this bill. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger successfully tied Intel to the US government and became the largest partner of the US chip strategy. It not only received $8.5 billion in direct subsidies, but also $11 billion in low-interest loans.

In order to please the US government, Intel actively took a stand to suppress China on the so-called Xinjiang-related issues, requiring its suppliers not to use any labor, purchase products or services from the Xinjiang region. In its financial report, it even listed Taiwan Province on a par with China, the United States, and Singapore, and took the initiative to cut off supply and service to Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. This is a typical "holding the bowl to eat, and putting down the bowl to smash the pot".

It is recommended to initiate a cybersecurity review of Intel's products sold in China to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

i think the bottom text has it wrong.

this is probably a stronger argument to get people to vote for her:

"Kombucha Girl" meme, disgusted face what she'll do

"Kombucha Girl" meme, reconsidering face what her opponent won't be able to do if she wins.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21201228

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20643795

It's early morning, and Zelda Montes walks briskly through the crisp New York air as they head to Google's headquarters on Manhattan’s 9th Avenue. Montes, who self-identifies as they, fumbles with their ID card at the entrance, blending in with the steady stream of Googlers swiping through the security barriers as if it were just another day at the office.

Armed with an oversized tote bag, Montes pulls back their purple hair and heads to the 13th-floor canteen to order their usual: a dirty chai and an egg, avocado, and cheese sandwich with a bowl of raspberries.

Their hands tremble slightly as they grip the coffee cup.

Locking eyes with two others, they get the signal that the coast is clear, head down to the entrance, and sit. The three Googlers unfurl their banners and begin chanting to demand that Google do one thing: Drop Project Nimbus.

But this will be the last time they sit inside Google's New York office as Googlers, as Google itself refers to its own employees. "Getting fired felt like a possibility but never a reality," remarked Montes, one of 50 employees fired by Google for staging a 10-hour sit-in at one of its American offices in April.

For the last three years, Montes has been one of several activists calling for Google to drop Project Nimbus, a partnership Google and Amazon have with the Israeli government reportedly worth $1.2bn.

 

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3613920

https://archive.ph/tR7s6

Get fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked

“This isn’t going to stop,” Allen told the New York Times. “Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost.”

"But I still want to get paid for it."

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