If you're an ordinary user worried about #meltdown and #spectre exploits: the usual guidelines apply. Update your software and use an ad-blocker. The lessons here important. Performance and security are inevitably in tension, and in my view, it is past time we chose security.
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted Ben Adida
Also, Yahoo didn't choose security, and hundreds of millions got hacked, and Yahoo acquisition price tanked. Hopefully, we are past needing more wake-up calls. (*laughs*.. *cries*)https://twitter.com/benadida/status/948991695374270469 …
zeynep tufekci added,
2 replies 14 retweets 53 likesShow this thread -
It may or may not have practical impacts, but the way some anti-virus software is blocking or slowing these critical security updates should also be a wake-up call. Security has to come from architecturally as deeply as possible; add-ons can actually make things worse.
2 replies 7 retweets 44 likesShow this thread -
#meltdown and#spectre probably ruined a lot of vacations, as vendors and sysadmins rushed to patch after forced early disclosure. Not the first time. These people are holding dikes from bursting. Ask your sysadmin or vendor if they patched over the "break": they deserve thanks!3 replies 13 retweets 51 likesShow this thread -
Also, who named these exploits? The names are


and so correctly evocative of the issues raised by the two different but related structural issues. Spectre haunting all modern chips... The Intel meltdown... Sometimes geek poetry is real poetry. :-D4 replies 25 retweets 131 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @zeynep1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
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I named it
#meltdown. It melts down the isolation between kernelspace and userspace. Also#meltdown on german is *kern*schmelze and CPU core is CPU-*Kern*, so it's like the CPU core is not in good condition anymore. And of course, this is an incident with significant impact.3 replies 17 retweets 25 likes -
Love the name! Very apt. And love the German wordplay. :-D Wonder who picked
#spectre, the one that haunts?1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
That is so apt!!!
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