Re: “Meltdown” and “Spectre”: Every modern processor has unfixable security flaws

[Jack Dangler <tdldev@gmail.com>]

On 01/04/2018 12:55 PM, The Wanderer wrote:
> On 2018-01-04 at 12:30, Michael Fothergill wrote:
>
> > On 4 January 2018 at 17:22, Curt <curty@free.fr> wrote:
> >
> > > https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-every-modern-
> > > processor-has-unfixable-security-fladdws/U
> > >
> > >
> > > TL;DR
> > >
> > >   Windows, Linux, and macOS have all received security patches that
> > >   significantly alter how the operating systems handle virtual memory in
> > >   order to protect against a hitherto undisclosed flaw.
> > > ...
> > >   In the immediate term, it looks like most systems will shortly have
> > >   patches for Meltdown. At least for Linux and Windows, these patches
> > >   allow end-users to opt out if they would prefer. The most vulnerable
> > >   users are probably cloud service providers; Meltdown and Spectre can
> > >   both in principle be used to further attacks against hypervisors,
> > >   making it easier for malicious users to break out of their virtual
> > >   machines.
> > > ...
> > >   For typical desktop users, the risk is arguably less significant. While
> > >   both Meltdown and Spectre can have value in expanding the scope of an
> > >   existing flaw, neither one is sufficient on its own to, for example,
> > >   break out of a Web browser.
> > >
> > > Apparent moral of story for CPU: don't speculate (but it's significantly
> > > *slower*).
> > ​Isn't this mainly an Intel problem?  I use AMD chipsets.  I would go for
> > Ryzen nowadays anyway.
> Meltdown so far is not known to affect anything other than Intel.
>
> Spectre, however, is confirmed to affect AMD CPUs - and Ryzen CPUs are
> specifically stated to be affected.
Did this also affect Motorola chipsets? I know they haven't been popular 
in a while, but I believe they are still in use (i.e. 68000)