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The software update is part of a number of fixes that will protect against a newly-discovered processor bug in Intel, AMD, and ARM chipsets. ... for Windows 10
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Is the update Windows 7?
Someone's therapist knows all about you!
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TTFN - Kent
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The relevant quote from Intel is here...
"Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a "bug" or a "flaw" and are unique to Intel products are incorrect. Based on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices - with many different vendors' processors and operating systems - are susceptible to these exploits.
Intel is committed to product and customer security and is working closely with many other technology companies, including AMD, ARM Holdings and several operating system vendors, to develop an industry-wide approach to resolve this issue promptly and constructively. Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits. Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time."
Note that the bug is present in "many types of computing devices" bit is quite separate from "is working closely with". Many suspect this is carefully drafted to avoid saying the bug is on AMD processors, while allowing readers to make that association. Is so, it has been entirely successful, AMD's share price has dropped while Intel's has risen.
AMD still state that the bug does not affect their CPU's, so this could well be foul (but legal) play by Intel.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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The comments beneath the following article are probably more informative about the issue than the article itself...
The Verge - Intel Security Bug Response[^]
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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There're two vulnerabilities.
Meltdown is a bug that affects Intel and some ARM CPUs that AMD claims doesn't affect them. This is the more serious one that there're performance eating work arounds for.
Spectre affects all vaguely modern CPUs (anything with speculative execution and a cache, ie anything with the minimum sophistication of a desktop chip from ~25 years ago or later). The only good news is that this side channel is much harder to exploit effectively. The bad news is that mitigating it is going to be a lot harder.
The best soundbyte I've seen for how bad Meltdown is is that Linus who's known for massive rants anytime a security change is proposed that has even a minor performance regressions hasn't said a word opposing these changes.
The second is that the linux kernel devs were sufficiently disgusted that they considered naming their fix for Meltdown "Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines" (aka ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) WIT)
Ars's article gives a solid rundown of what each bug is, The Register has a breakdown of what the platforms successfully exploited so far for each are:
“Meltdown” and “Spectre”: Every modern processor has unfixable security flaws | Ars Technica
Meltdown, Spectre: The password theft bugs at the heart of Intel CPUs • The Register
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I have yet to see anything (including the articles you linked) suggest that Meltdown affects anything other than Intel CPUs, correct me if I'm wrong. ARM stated that some of its CPUs may be vulnerable, but as yet this has not been proven.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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From the Register article, the 4th and 5th bullets from the end of the meltdown section:
Quote:
It also affects Arm Cortex-A75 cores. Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 845 is an example part that uses the A75. There are Linux kernel KPTI patches available to mitigate this. The performance hit isn't known, but expected to be minimal.
Additionally, Cortex-A15, Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A72 cores suffer from a variant of Meltdown: protected system registers can be accessed, rather than kernel memory, by user processes. Arm has a detailed white paper and product table, here, describing all its vulnerable cores, the risks, and mitigations.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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OK, Thanks - still not quite as bad as a kernel memory vulnerability, but definitely affected.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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[^]
[^]
Microsoft Update Catalog[^]
For any sys admins check above links... if you test on test machine / vm please leave a report as to how / compatibility / performance / affected programs etc post install
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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Machine learning systems are very capable, but they aren’t exactly smart. They lack common sense. Taking advantage of that fact, researchers have created a wonderful attack on image recognition systems that uses specially printed stickers that are so interesting to the AI that it completely fails to see anything else. If it looks like a duck, it might be a toaster?
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Taking advantage of that fact, researchers have created a wonderful attack on image recognition systems that uses specially printed stickers that are so interesting to the AI that it completely fails to see anything else.
I predict face paint will become a new fashion. 
Latest Article - Code Review - What You Can Learn From a Single Line of Code
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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Hi Marc, face-painting already a 400+ billion$ industry: [^].
In Thailand, skin-whitening lotions and potions ... to try and achieve whiter skin, not for UV protection ... is a gigantic business. 
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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This comes to mind: [^]
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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As we move towards a paperless -- and email-free workplace, how will the office of the future look in five years time? HahahHAHaahhAHAHAHHA... no.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: HahahHAHaahhAHAHAHHA... no.
Exactly what I thought when I saw the header/title for this item.
I remember back in '95 "they" talked about THE PAPERLESS OFFICE. uh huh, right. 
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The unnamed and unseen "they" were talking about the paperless office way back in 1986 in my experience.
As for email... yeah, the snail mail post offices will all be closed long before the digital ones ever are.
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When did email start getting put in this bucket?
email-less (as in fewer emails) is one thing, email-free is ludicrous.
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I think the Slack (etc.) crowd think they've invented the email-killer. Or maybe we just all need to move our businesses to Facebook or something. 
TTFN - Kent
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Yeah, because handling dozens of channels in Slack, which never stick on topic, is so much simpler. (Even more fun when several conversations on a Slack channel are intertwined.)
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The culture of the office would definitely change without printers. Our department printers have become the social hangout spot of choice where rumors and eavesdropping are the norm.
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I hope not. I've been using the work printer in lieu of a home printer
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Nope, it seems like an age thing. Once the older ones retire, the paper use should go down, but won't go out.
Hogan
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15 months at my current job. I've sent exactly nothing to the office printer so far. 
I've done a fair amount of printing total, but that was all due to a project using thermal receipt printers that were flakey enough that print to PDF wasn't able to detect all the problems that needed worked around. 
I don't do a lot of internal email here, Slack and Jira are our main communication tools.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I can see chat bots replacing email for a lot of status check / process enquiry type emails that we use currently... for example most HR interactions.
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