Re: pentium bug mail

[Mark Bishop <mark@vincent.silug.org>]

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Steven Pritchard wrote:
> 
> Apparently Cyrix 6x86 processors are affected by a similar bug, but I
> haven't looked into that too closely.  No other processors are
> vulnerable.  Intel is working on a fix/work-around.
> 

Can we say recall?  Well, not really.  Intel has for years designed
processors that can be reprogrammed.  Now imagine if Intel releases a
programmable fix.  Someone takes the binary, decodes it and then reverse
engineers the code out of the binary.  Now I go to any other
Pentium machine and run the modified code that I got from Intel's
fix/patch and I can render that chip useless.  Seems Intel has themselves
in a catch 22.  It's going to be interesting what they do.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mark Bishop  (mark@bish.midwest.net) |   Computer Engineering Senior |
| 618.536.6595                         |  Southern Illinois University |
| http://vincent.silug.org             |           TCT Systems Manager |


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