Worrying security issue

He who wants to see things always just rosy, cannot be stopped from doing so. Even when slapping his face he will smile and insist that nothing happened. Well.

What he really is about, is this: "Leave me alone, i do not want to think about needing to change my usual ways and likes."

As an Israeli general, Sharon, once said: "Hope - is not a strategy."

 

Week ago Intel published results of it's ME engine security audit:
http://www.securityweek.com/intel-chip-flaws-expose-millions-devices-attacks
https://security-center.intel.com/advisory.aspx?intelid=INTEL-SA-00086&languageid=en-fr

 

A pest is a pest is a pest. And a backdoor is a backdoor is a backdoor.

 

AGENDA 21

 

Thought this was a "Worrying Security Issue" when I started to read the info GM emailed me....Jesus, they could've just wrote in one sentence "We have and know everything about you via Onstar, ip addresses, credit card numbers, CVV codes, mobile devices, Google, Twitter, Facebook etc. etc.....And store this info ourselves. You can"Trust us"

http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/corporate/about/privacy/overview

 

^ "Your privacy is important to us".

What a double-edged phrase.

Anyway, the current status: more microcode patches for W10 hardware that cure security issues that have not even once manifestated in the wild so far (only plenty proof-of-concepts being demonstrated), but have partially triggered dramatic performance drops in hardware; and after Meltdown came Total Meltdown for W7 and its curres. The threat for W7 is a more real one, btw, W7 users have to take it serious. To stop updating W7 now is too late - you should have done so already 2 or 3 years ago. Like me did on my old rig.

Its not obvious. But its a mess.

Oh, and growing concerns that the whole show is beign run in order to bully people into buying new hardware that else they would buy a lot of time later only.

Source: I frequently read the entries in - the repeatedly quoted now - blog of Woody Leonhard and Susan Bradley, and occassionally this and that other Microsoft tech site. If you visit Woody'S blog, too, or his articles for Computerworld, also pay attention to the readers' feedback, so many knowing guys there, so much info you do not easily catch up in published articles on organised sites.

The mess gets messier all the time. Not so much due to the original threat doing damage - but due to the attempts run to contain it. If that is not ironic. Or perverse.

For W10 users I still uphold my reocmmendation regarding Spectre and Meltdown: do not install ANY "patch" or microsode upodate for it. Chances are you do more harm than good. Or to be more precise: you have no chance to do any good currently, but a realistic chance to do harm to your system performance.

Once Spectre and Meltdown show to stablish real world attacks in the wild indeed (again: so far not one has been run, not one is beign known of), we talk again.

 

Ya, I've visited "Ask Woody" many times when I wanted to know what updates to avoid. It's a full time job to try and figure out the Microsoft madness...The way they do their quality and security roll up updates now are almost impossible to decipher.

 

"Quality updates"...? Microsoft...??? Thats a contradiction in itself.

Their desastrous KB documentation is not the only thing that went down the drain in past three years. I know why I migrated to Linux two years ago. As you said, taking care of not getting assaulted by unwanted Windows (7) patches became a full time job back then, and it was no longer worth it to me.

Two systems. One as game console with W10 and games and all update policies set too as restrictive as settings allow, another system with Linux Mint for EVERYTHING else. Its the second-best way to deal with the Windocalypse. Best way would be to avoid Windows gaming and Windows OS alltogether.

 

Maybe this is an alternative.

https://www.reactos.org/

 

New, bigger desaster hitting Intel: welcome Spectre NG (Next Generation). The news was dropped yesterday by researchers of German computer magazine "C'T". The following link is the first article in English that I found, just hours old.

https://borncity.com/win/2018/05/03/...in-intel-cpus/

At least 8 new vulnerabilities of Intel CPUs have been found. They are kept secret in explanations about their design, so that they win some time to catch up with them, but it is said these new vulnerabilities are more dangerous than the last ones, since they do no longer need special, hard-to-obtain and hard-to-carry-out special knowledge to make use of them. The risk to private users may be a bit smaller than for server service operators, cloud providers and others. But all in all the risk seems to be higher for everybody than with Spectre 1 and 2 and Meltdown.

Not to forget the damage done by microsocde and Microsoft pooatches to "cure" the older security holes. Not to forget Totla Meltdown on Windows 7 machines.

The CPUs by Intel are not described as having some holes, but to be "holey like Swiss cheese".

I'm so lucky that I use my Intel gaming machine on W10 only for games, and nothing else. Bought in in Nove,mbre, but wiht the revelatiosn of the past 4 months I would never buy Intel again anymore, not for the next couple of years. Too expensive for the risk-package stuff you get. If I would have waited just 6 weeks longer back then...

The German article that dropped the bomb yesterday: https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Super-GAU-fuer-Intel-Weitere-Spectre-Luecken-im-Anflug-4039134.html


One thing is clear. My next CPU in some years will not be Intel. I have lost all appetite to financially reward them any longer.

 

I see that the original German article meanwhile also has been officially translated:

https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Excl...s-4040648.html

Well.

 

Interesting. Makes you wonder who's who when finding these vulnerabilities.... Well hopefully they get it sorted with their new architecture coming down the pike, and I will easily forgive the past if this "dream team" comes through. (Look at the AMD influence. Jim Keller!)WOW. Me thinks I will be waiting to build my next rig around..Oh, let's say 2020?!

https://wccftech.com/intel-ocean-cove-next-gen-high-performance-core-revealed-job-listing/

https://wccftech.com/intel-gpu-arctic-sound-gaming-variant/

 

aaamaazing. PS works!



thanks for the tip. i guess this will be my next secure OS after upgrade, and win just for gaming & VR

 

This and this again for the win. I do like this, using Linux Mint on a second rig for everythogn else except gaming. Including typing this post. Windows 10 only maintains my PC as a game console. And not one bit more.

I tested ReactOS via LiveCD a week ago, too, due to the tip in here. But I found it to be quite limited and ran into problems. Maybe I did not spend enough time, but it seems to me that as an alternative OS Linux is the better choice. If Linux already has compatability issues and problems with lackign drivers, than in ReactOS I expect these to be even much greater problems.

I warn against using WINE in Linux, you can corrupt/infest your Linux-established files and data structures (say your photo library or text files) by catching malware for Windows while you are running WINE, you can also become a distributor for Windows malware, staying clean yourself as long as you run Linux, but infesting others, Windows users. There is a reason why in every book on Linux that is worth its money the author warns against using WINE. It is not safe.

 

absolutely, Linux is more refined OS for sure, reactOS is too raw at that moment being in alpha stage. blue-screens, early win issues "can't read memory" etc.. it should be in a final stage before be installed in my hd, but i see a potential already

 

They are sitting on it since 1996, I think. My confidence in any speedy development is a bit dampened. What it is today - it got there after over 20 years' work? Sounds more like somebody's hobby than a serious project to me.

 

true, it's indeed an enthusiastic hobby

 

Food for thought...Has anything "really" changed?

https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018...t-lawsuit-netscape-internet-explorer-20-years

 

To all stations: take full cover - they threaten once again to adress the problem.

https://www.askwoody.com/2018/a-note-about-the-new-spectre-ng-revelations/