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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Fully validating hardware is an insane task that hasn't been really done in years. It would mean 5 years between chip releases and a 2-5X in cost to produce, and people wouldn't follow the validated configs anyways. If we followed the validated hardware spec we would have 50 min boot times and not go past a 3.5Ghz clock.
People have the choice today on if they want to run on validated hardware. You can opt in to get a 2.8Ghz part that supports 2666MT/s that is mostly tested and validated, or you can get a 5Ghz part that supports 6000MT/s that is only partially validated. They cost the same price. What do folks think people pick?
Who said anything about fully validating hardware? "Hardware vendors should solve their own problems" is not the same as "hardware vendors should fully validate their products".
Is this really the hardware vendor's problem though? It's the consumers problem.
I bring up full validation because the concern here is putting in a speculative fix. If the ask is, why was the hardware like that in the first place the answer is because it can't be fully validated. If the ask is why should a speculative fix go into the Kernel it is because the consumers are not on top of tree and if a fix has a chance of never being exploited it needs to be pulled in years ahead so it goes into an LTR that customers migrate to BEFORE the issue comes up.
But that's not the question. There are two questions: Who should be responsible for patching hardware vulnerabilities? And if the answer is "the kernel" then should speculative but never demonstrated vulnerabilities be patched? Linus' answer is the hardware manufacturer, and no.
Maybe we're running into the ambiguity of language. If you mean to say, "Who does it cause a problem for? The consumer." then sure. On the other hand what I mean, and what I think Linus means, is "Who's responsible for the vulnerability existing? Hardware vendors. Who should fix it? Hardware vendors."
Depends on what you/we/they mean by "speculative". IMO, we need to do something (microcode, kernel patches, whatever) to patch Spectre and Meltdown. Those have been demonstrated to be real vulnerabilities, even if no one has exploited them yet. But "speculative" can mean something else. I'm not going to read all the LMK emails so maybe they're talking about something else. But I've seen plenty of, "Well if X, Y, and Z happen then that could be a vulnerability." For that kind of speculative vulnerability, one that has not been demonstrated to be a real vulnerability, I am sympathetic to Linus' position.
This is a patch from the hardware vendor so I am assuming that the ask is not that the hardware vendor take responsibility but that they not release buggy hardware. That is what I mean about the validation issue.
The attack vector is shared in the patch so it isn't entirely a theory.
There is a comment from Linus about how this patch is only needed for some hardware and doesn't apply to others but I don't get his relevance there as different hardware validates against different use cases and their source logic might be entirely disparate.
So my validation talk is simply saying that bugs happen. My concern here is what more should a hardware vendor do beyond submitting a kernel patch? You can't just not have the bug, and if you recall the part someone else will just keep theirs in the field and take all the market share and roll the dice that their bugs don't get exploited.