Three Class-Action Lawsuits Target AMD Over Spectre Vulnerability

[Guest]

Three class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of consumers who purchased AMD's processors in the time between the discovery and disclosure of the Spectre vulnerability.

Three Class-Action Lawsuits Target AMD Over Spectre Vulnerability : Read more

 

[TwoSpoons100]

Can you imagine the screaming if AMD and Intel had halted all CPU sales for six months while they fixed the issue? That probably would have resulted in even more lawsuits as hardware vendors were driven to the wall.
Damned if you do - damned if you don't.

 

[blazorthon]

If you wanted to sue over the fact that these vulnerabilities even happened so badly and were present for such a long time, then okay, but complaining about the companies still selling them between officially learning of the problems and making it publicly known is excessive. The same goes for suing Intel over that. AMD and Intel couldn't have simply stopped selling the chips because the retailers, OEMs, and such would have continued selling the chips or selling products containing the chips.

Maybe recalls would have actually stopped sales, but how can you recall practically every CPU in existence? Besides that, what's the point of stopping sales if you believe you can get workable patches out before much malware actually exploits the problems? If not for the sample code getting published, it might have been even longer before Meltdown and Spectre exploits started showing up.

 

[steve15180]

At this point, I just don't get it. The stock price barely changed, Meltdown is a non issue, Spectre 1 is a software issue that has been addressed (so far), and Spectre 2 has not been shown to work on AMD cpus (at least Zen, which was for sale). I'll be surprised if their not laughed out of court.

 

[mihen]

These lawsuits are reliant on people ignorant to technology. So there is always a chance to make a buck. The only real issue with AMD processors in these regards were on older Athlon processors. They really don't have a case if the judge is technically literate.
With what we know about Meltdown and Spectre, it is much more plausible that AMD could have been selling their chips at a higher price.

 

[cryoburner]

If you wanted to sue over the fact that these vulnerabilities even happened so badly and were present for such a long time, then okay, but complaining about the companies still selling them between officially learning of the problems and making it publicly known is excessive. The same goes for suing Intel over that.

I somewhat agree, but I will say that Intel's rushed release of Coffee Lake months earlier than many were expecting based on earlier roadmaps possibly makes more sense if you consider that they might have wanted to get it out the door and reviewed before Spectre and Meltdown came to light and potentially impacted performance. Releasing the processors in early 2018, right around the time the exploits are unveiled and performance-sapping patches released might have put a more negative vibe around the launch. It's also possible that they could have simply wanted to accelerate their schedule so that they could launch Ice Lake with in-silicon fixes before this year is through.

 

[blackfist0]

These backdoors are intentional. The governments of the world want access to your PC and AMD and Intel are willing to comply. Only when the problem is in the public eye will they do something about it. Expect a new loophole created in next gen chips to allow governments to spy on you again.

 

[blackfist0]

These backdoors are intentional, They are also built into hardrive firmware. That is how Iran became victim of StuxNet. The governments of the world want access to your PC and AMD and Intel are willing to comply. Only when the problem is in the public eye will they do something about it. Expect a new loophole created in next gen chips to allow governments gain access again.

 

[BulkZerker]

These backdoors are intentional. The governments of the world want access to your PC and AMD and Intel are willing to comply. Only when the problem is in the public eye will they do something about it. Expect a new loophole created in next gen chips to allow governments to spy on you again.

Whew lad. That's a bit tinfoil hat of you. These issues have been in the processors for a very long time and Spectre 2 has been there since... Ivybridge?

 

[lsatenstein]

According to AMD, the possibility of succumbing to a Spectre attack is less than 1 in 10 million. It needs an attacker who uses random tests, as a sequential test (0 to infinity)should fail.

Each of the attackers will have to show a general system (windows or Linux) and an actual and repeatable successful attack of a system that has not been patched.

 

[Kewlx25]

At this point, I just don't get it. The stock price barely changed, Meltdown is a non issue, Spectre 1 is a software issue that has been addressed (so far), and Spectre 2 has not been shown to work on AMD cpus (at least Zen, which was for sale). I'll be surprised if their not laughed out of court.

Non-issue for nearly all desktop usages, but some server loads can see upwards of a 30% performance reduction with the workaround.

 

[lsatenstein]

These backdoors are intentional. The governments of the world want access to your PC and AMD and Intel are willing to comply. Only when the problem is in the public eye will they do something about it. Expect a new loophole created in next gen chips to allow governments to spy on you again.

Do not expect loopholes in the next CPUs. Intel and AMD and Qualcom and every cpu chip manufacturer allows for microcode updates.
In the past, the updates were delivered via Windows, Linux or other operating system. Future updates will be sent to the mother board, and it will be the mother board processor that modifies the CPU instructions as part of the power-on process.
The governments will tackle the motherboard manufacturers to have access to that update process wherein the MB updates the CPU..