I am somewhat confused by applying the patch, does this disable HTT functionality? or does a patched server close the issue and keep HTT enabled?
Chris On 5/14/05, Drew B. [Security Expertise/Freelance Security research]. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The political problem is that if all operating systems do that, > Intel has a pretty dud feature on their hands, and they are not > particularly eager to accept that fact. > > Hehehe... I cannot help but giigle abit, I didnt think this went that > deep :o , definately interesting stuff regarding the future of HT and > O/S Types,ty even though the answer may help someone else more, > Regards, > Drew B. > > (Enlightening myself to inspire others is my answer to everything > *No-Comment*) > > > On 5/14/05, Poul-Henning Kamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Drew B. [Security Expe > > rtise/Freelance Security research]." writes: > > > > >this sounds like trying to solve in the OS a problem that can only > > >be solved in the application. Is there something more subtle > > >that's going on? > > > > Well, the application could theoretically do something and Colin > > advocated it this morning: make the crypto code footprint data > > and key independent. While possible, it is both very tricky to > > do (in particular in highlevel languages) and generally found > > to be much slower than speed-optimized code. > > > > And while that could solve the immediate panic with OpenSSL and > > similar, it does not solve the general problem that you can spy > > very efficiently on the behaviour of another program. > > > > The fact that one user would be able to spy on another users editor > > application and be able to extract for instance the word lengths > > and layout of a document would also be considered a major security > > problem in many installations. > > > > Or how about just being able to monitor another customers apache > > instance to figure out how much traffic they get and which pages > > they get it on ? > > > > The fundamental trouble is that HTT makes the spying far more > > efficient than it is with SMP or even UP (I think we are talking > > in the order of a million times more efficient). > > > > That takes the attack from the "if you were really lucky" to the > > "almost always in first try" category. > > > > The correct (technical) workaround (IMO) is to restrict HTT to be > > used only for threads from the same process. > > > > The political problem is that if all operating systems do that, > > Intel has a pretty dud feature on their hands, and they are not > > particularly eager to accept that fact. > > > > Poul-Henning > > > > -- > > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > > FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > > > > -- > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Drew B. > Independant Security analysis,for Aussies. > Security researcher/expert,threat-focus,Freelance. > _______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
