http://marc.info/…

These processors are buggy as hell, and some of these bugs don’t just cause development / debugging problems, but will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code.

As is typical, BIOS vendors will be very late providing workarounds / fixes for these processors bugs. Some bugs are unfixable and cannot be worked around. Intel only provides detailed fixes to BIOS vendors and large operating system groups. Open Source operating systems are largely left in the cold.

CPUs have always had bugs. As these chips contain more and more moving parts the likelihood of bugs will increase. Normally these bugs have been reasonably easy to work around and accommodate for… but de Raadt is saying that a large percentage of the Core 2’s bugs can’t be and are even userland exploitable. I’ve yet to look over the errata but taking Theo’s word… things sound fairly serious to me.

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