> do not have the potential to corrupt, modify or delete data.
I believe the point of this sentence was simply to distinguish malicious read access (possible) from any modifying access (impossible).
> Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect.
I believe the second half of the sentence is far more important, i. e. the attempt to broaden the news story to include other chip vendors. The scare-quotes around "bug" may suggest that Intel thinks they correctly implemented Tomasulo’s algorithm, and any flaw would not be theirs–which actually goes well with the second half of the sentence.
The part on performance is probably correct: Consumers might not notice any hit in performance. Gaming seems not to be impacted, and CPUs tend to be under-utilised anyway.
Overall, I think this statement is obviously damage control, but there really isn't anything wrong with the content from a consumer user of an Intel CPU. Basically: don't freak out, install patches, stay tuned.
The tone is actually refreshingly to-the-point. At least they are not taking us on a voyage to Qualityland.
Your typical system has a rather large number of pieces that rely on that protection against read access in order to keep an attacker from obtaining information that would allow malicious corruption, modification, and deletion of data. Intel are being weaselly.
I believe the point of this sentence was simply to distinguish malicious read access (possible) from any modifying access (impossible).
> Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect.
I believe the second half of the sentence is far more important, i. e. the attempt to broaden the news story to include other chip vendors. The scare-quotes around "bug" may suggest that Intel thinks they correctly implemented Tomasulo’s algorithm, and any flaw would not be theirs–which actually goes well with the second half of the sentence.
The part on performance is probably correct: Consumers might not notice any hit in performance. Gaming seems not to be impacted, and CPUs tend to be under-utilised anyway.
Overall, I think this statement is obviously damage control, but there really isn't anything wrong with the content from a consumer user of an Intel CPU. Basically: don't freak out, install patches, stay tuned.
The tone is actually refreshingly to-the-point. At least they are not taking us on a voyage to Qualityland.