Theo de Raadt Details Intel Core 2 Bugs

Eukariote writes "Recently, Intel patched bugs in its Core 2 processors. Details were scarce; soothing words were spoken to the effect that a BIOS update is all that is required. OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt has now provided more details and analysis on outstanding, fixed, and non-fixable Core 2 bugs. Some choice quotes: 'Some of these bugs... will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code... Some of these are things that cannot be fixed in running code, and some are things that every operating system will do until about mid-2008.'"

Yay AMD

[delt0r]

Thank God I got a AMD this time around.

Intel chips

[supersnail]

.. not intel compatable.

Ask for your money back folks!

Re:Summary sucks, someone please provide better on

[Hurga]

can someone at slashdot please provide an "english" translation of the problems and how dangerous they are to normal users?

"We don't have the complete picture yet, but things look bad"

Hanno

Re:How hard is it to get right?

[SatanicPuppy]

What is a bug but an undocumented feature?

translation

[circletimessquare]

the computer thingamajibs don't do things right and the computer nerds are all upset about it. best not to click on ANYTHING until 2009

UGH!! Just bought Core 2

[pygmy_jesus]

I've stuck with AMD for over 6 years, but after all the talk about how they fell off, plus the OC ability of Intel, I just put together a core2 system! You see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry?!?!

Re:Yay AMD

[Intron]

Why x86? You write a lot of code in machine language? Ever hear of Java?

Re:Good stuff.

[suv4x4]

Some of these bugs are along the lines of "buffer overflow"; where a write-protect or non-execute bit for a page table entry is ignored. Others are floating point instruction non-coherencies, or memory corruptions -- outside of the range of permitted writing for the process -- running common instruction sequences.

It will be interesting to see what Intel has to say about this.

Yea! Damn, where's the Intel Opinion Center exactly when you need it!

Old jokes from the Pentium days...

[Anonymous Coward]

The first Pentium had a floating point bug. Maybe they're working too closely with Microsoft? (I kid! I kid! Put down that flamethrower!) Any way, here are a few Pentium jokes I dug up. If only the Core 2 bugs were all floating point erroirs we could recycle all of these old jokes to Core 2 jokes!

Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people.

Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?
A: A mad scientist.

Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A: The warning label.

Q: What do you call a series of FDIV instructions on a Pentium?
A1: Successive approximations.
A2: A random number generator.

Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply is to:
                1) Divide
                2) ROUND
                3) RANDOM
                4) On a Pentium, all of the above
A: Number 4.

Q: What algorithm did Intel use in the Pentium's floating point divider?
A: "Life is like a box of chocolates." (Source: F. Gump of Intel)

Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got 585.999983605.

Q: According to Intel, the Pentium conforms to the IEEE standards 754
        and 854 for floating point arithmetic. If you fly in aircraft
        designed using a Pentium, what is the correct pronunciation of "IEEE"?
A: Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!

Q: Did you hear about the new "morning after" pill being developed as a replacement for RU-486???
A: Its called RU-Pentium. It causes the embryo to not divide correctly.

TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM:
    9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
    8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So
    7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
    6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
    5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well
    4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really
    3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful
    2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
    1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
    0.9999999998 The Errata Inside

THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BUY A PENTIUM MACHINE:
10. Your current computer is too accurate
9. You want to get into the guinness book as "owner of most expensive paperweight"
8. Math errors add zest to life
7. You need an alibi for the I.R.S.
6. You want to see what all the fuss is about
5. You've always wondered what it would be like to be a plaintiff
4. The "intel inside" logo matches your decor perfectly
3. You no longer have to worry about cpu overheating
2. You got a great deal from JPL
1. It'll probably work

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Remember to tip the bartender. Lets see, 20% of... divide by...

Re:How hard is it to get right?

[suv4x4]

% uname -a
FreeBSD myhost.grateful.net 6.2-STABLE FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE #0: Mon May 28 09:52:28 PDT 2007 [e-mail]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/AMD64 i386

Wait... this works in Slashdot's text area?

% uname -a

% uname -a

Damn it :(

Re:Yay AMD

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

He does have kind words about open bsd. ... Sometimes.

Re:Quantum effects?

[Reverend528]

My favorite errata in the list is AI22, Sequential Code Fetch to Non-canonical Address May have Nondeterministic Results. Basically the chip decides that all of the high oreder bits should be '1', instead of '0' - for no apparent reason as its not consistent.

That's not a bug. It's a cryptographically secure random number generator!

Re:How hard is it to get right?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Any sufficiently advanced undocumented feature is indistinguishable from a bug. :-)

Re:Quantum effects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but wikipedia defines a nanoparticle as one with at least one dimension less than 100nm.

Wikipedia also defines elephants as sandwiches.

What intel had to say:

[Vryl]

"Come on people, move along, nothing to see here".

Re:How hard is it to get right?

[zcsteele]

Actually, Intel CPU's are designed in Verilog. Intel never used VHDL for it's CPUs - it used to use iHDL, an internal hardware description languange, but convereted to Verilog about 6 years ago.

That explains everything!

My condolences to Intel's engineers.

Re:Yay AMD

[dreddnott]

As far as I know, CP/M on the Zilog Z-80 is still waiting for a JVM...

Re:Yay AMD

[TeknoHog]

not bad for a 16 year old model!

I'll rather take the 16 year old model, please. :-P

Re:How hard is it to get right?

[Anonymous Coward]

% uname -a
Linux flabbergasted 2.6.20-16-lowlatency #2 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jun 7 20:23:03 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

No problem here; you must be using one of those Intel Core2 CPUs.