If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Rate Thread | Display Modes |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On 1/21/2018 10:15 AM, Brian Gregory wrote:
It seems to be possible to update the microcode from the OS and Microsoft could do that if they wanted. Linux can do it. It would be interesting if microcode is updated through the OS rather than the BIOS. It would solve a lot of problems with older systems. Even when they were new, BIOS updates were rare things to come out. Yousuf Khan |
Ads |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
Paul news
Jan 2018 06:57:45 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote: Seems to be much easier than trying to install and run PowerShell scripts, and much more reliable too: https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm Have you decided what's it doing ? Yep. It's not a protected executable. He made no effort to hide any code. So, I disassembled it. It's checking CPUID and various registry entries and providing advice based on what it finds. Which is why it's only partially useful under Wine. CPUID it can get, registry entries unless you muck with them just to screw with the program won't be valid. -- To prevent yourself from being a victim of cyber stalking, it's highly recommended you visit he https://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php ================================================== = 'There isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate compassion' |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 14:57:19 +0000, Ed Cryer
wrote: There must be zillions of computers around the world in a similar situation. All vulnerable, so where are the cyber criminals and vandals who will have heard about this like the rest of us? They could mop up fortunes if they jumped in now. It`s quite easy to circumvent the vulnerability by Spectre (which needs a microcode upate on intel processors): Use different web browsers for different purposes or use different user accounts. Meltdown, which cannot be avoided this way, is already patched. Regards M. |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 16:41:17 +0100, "s|b" wrote:
On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 04:58:50 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote: For Spectre, it says that that requires a firmware upgrade. My processor (AMD) shows that it's invulnerable to Meltdown, but susceptible to Spectre. The way to fix Spectre requires a BIOS upgrade. I have a feeling that I will never see another BIOS upgrade for my system, as the last BIOS update for my board was 2013! The board makers may update boards that are a year or two old, but not this one. Same here. AMD A8-3870. | Vulnerable to Meltdown: NO | Vulnerable to Spect YES! | Performance: GOOD Latest BIOS is dated 2014. This highlights the need for open-source BIOS software like what Puri.sm delivers on its computers. The age of proprietary is nearing its end. |
#20
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 16:41:17 +0100, "s|b" wrote: On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 04:58:50 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote: For Spectre, it says that that requires a firmware upgrade. My processor (AMD) shows that it's invulnerable to Meltdown, but susceptible to Spectre. The way to fix Spectre requires a BIOS upgrade. I have a feeling that I will never see another BIOS upgrade for my system, as the last BIOS update for my board was 2013! The board makers may update boards that are a year or two old, but not this one. Same here. AMD A8-3870. | Vulnerable to Meltdown: NO | Vulnerable to Spect YES! | Performance: GOOD Latest BIOS is dated 2014. This highlights the need for open-source BIOS software like what Puri.sm delivers on its computers. The age of proprietary is nearing its end. I don't really think you want a new BIOS now. http://news.softpedia.com/news/canon...e-519494.shtml Back to the drawing board for the Intel rocket scientists. Just keep your browser patched, m'kay ? Paul |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:27:18 -0500, Paul
wrote: Doomsdrzej wrote: On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 16:41:17 +0100, "s|b" wrote: On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 04:58:50 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote: For Spectre, it says that that requires a firmware upgrade. My processor (AMD) shows that it's invulnerable to Meltdown, but susceptible to Spectre. The way to fix Spectre requires a BIOS upgrade. I have a feeling that I will never see another BIOS upgrade for my system, as the last BIOS update for my board was 2013! The board makers may update boards that are a year or two old, but not this one. Same here. AMD A8-3870. | Vulnerable to Meltdown: NO | Vulnerable to Spect YES! | Performance: GOOD Latest BIOS is dated 2014. This highlights the need for open-source BIOS software like what Puri.sm delivers on its computers. The age of proprietary is nearing its end. I don't really think you want a new BIOS now. http://news.softpedia.com/news/canon...e-519494.shtml Back to the drawing board for the Intel rocket scientists. Just keep your browser patched, m'kay ? I'll have to hope that Vivaldi is considered patched. Either way, it updates automatically and I use Bitdefender as well if that gives me the proper additional level of security. Once I'm done with Divinity Original Sin 2, I think I'll move back to Linux permanently and use GNU IceCat though. |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On 22/01/2018 02:41, Paul wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 23:54, Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 21:49, Paul wrote: Microsoft is *always* shipping Microcode. At the moment, it's delivering what I would guess to be Nov 2017 or so microcode. Not Jan 8, 2018 microcode. Linux has already delivered Jan 8, 2018 microcode. The microcode file, while called "Linux" on the Intel site, is actually suitable for *any* OS. Since Intel delivers a copy to Microsoft directly, no web site delivery is needed. But for the 500 distros out there, Intel provides microcode for download, so those people can pick it up. Then why is everyone saying we need to update our BIOSs? I pretty sure Steve himself said in the podcast that Microsoft hadn't updated the microcode in Windows for years. Sorry, forgot which newsgroup I was in, I mean Steve Gibson of GRC.COM. That's not true. As one of my test cases, I booted a Linux LiveCD, one a couple years old, and the microcode level was 16. The Windows 10 16299.192 microcode level is 28. The very latest Linux one available, is 2a. Microsoft *is* providing OS level microcode, just not using the January 8, 2018 version quite yet. Neither is Linux, on all distros. Only the most modern got it so far. Linux in the distro package manager, provides a separate line item for "microcode.dat", and presumably selecting that does whatever magic is needed to make an initrd or similar. You would look in your package manager, to see if perhaps the microcode had been recently updated. In the Ubuntu test VM, I could indeed see the word "microcode" in a list of 500MB worth of patches. It was an item in there. I saw it fly by. And in Linux, I have a couple ways to check. Via dmesg | grep microcode, or via looking at cat /proc/cpuinfo or similar. Since I know some of the available revision numbers for my CPU, I'm able to tell whether a January patch was installed or not. ... Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 as-is puts my Core i7-4790K to revision 1C which seems likely to be really old since the 2018-01-08 microcode puts it to revision 23 and the 2017-11-17 microcode puts it to revision 22. -- Brian Gregory (in England). |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
Spectre? Meltdown? SM? Well.....
On 21/1/2018 14:31, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Seems to be much easier than trying to install and run PowerShell scripts, and much more reliable too: https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm Why is it S. and M.? Something to do with special form of sex? -- @~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!! / v \ Simplicity is Beauty! /( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you! ^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3 不借貸! 不詐騙! 不援交! 不打交! 不打劫! 不自殺! 請考慮綜援 (CSSA): http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa |
#24
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
Brian Gregory wrote:
On 22/01/2018 02:41, Paul wrote: Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 23:54, Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 21:49, Paul wrote: Microsoft is *always* shipping Microcode. At the moment, it's delivering what I would guess to be Nov 2017 or so microcode. Not Jan 8, 2018 microcode. Linux has already delivered Jan 8, 2018 microcode. The microcode file, while called "Linux" on the Intel site, is actually suitable for *any* OS. Since Intel delivers a copy to Microsoft directly, no web site delivery is needed. But for the 500 distros out there, Intel provides microcode for download, so those people can pick it up. Then why is everyone saying we need to update our BIOSs? I pretty sure Steve himself said in the podcast that Microsoft hadn't updated the microcode in Windows for years. Sorry, forgot which newsgroup I was in, I mean Steve Gibson of GRC.COM. That's not true. As one of my test cases, I booted a Linux LiveCD, one a couple years old, and the microcode level was 16. The Windows 10 16299.192 microcode level is 28. The very latest Linux one available, is 2a. Microsoft *is* providing OS level microcode, just not using the January 8, 2018 version quite yet. Neither is Linux, on all distros. Only the most modern got it so far. Linux in the distro package manager, provides a separate line item for "microcode.dat", and presumably selecting that does whatever magic is needed to make an initrd or similar. You would look in your package manager, to see if perhaps the microcode had been recently updated. In the Ubuntu test VM, I could indeed see the word "microcode" in a list of 500MB worth of patches. It was an item in there. I saw it fly by. And in Linux, I have a couple ways to check. Via dmesg | grep microcode, or via looking at cat /proc/cpuinfo or similar. Since I know some of the available revision numbers for my CPU, I'm able to tell whether a January patch was installed or not. ... Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 as-is puts my Core i7-4790K to revision 1C which seems likely to be really old since the 2018-01-08 microcode puts it to revision 23 and the 2017-11-17 microcode puts it to revision 22. If you use the Intel bootable floppy version, that one will in effect return the BIOS version, so you can determine the "lowest" revision the hardware can return at the moment. You could see if the BIOS put the 1C there or not. If the BIOS version is less than 1C, then Windows put the 1C there. Paul |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On 25/01/2018 17:15, Paul wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote: On 22/01/2018 02:41, Paul wrote: Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 23:54, Brian Gregory wrote: On 21/01/2018 21:49, Paul wrote: Microsoft is *always* shipping Microcode. At the moment, it's delivering what I would guess to be Nov 2017 or so microcode. Not Jan 8, 2018 microcode. Linux has already delivered Jan 8, 2018 microcode. The microcode file, while called "Linux" on the Intel site, is actually suitable for *any* OS. Since Intel delivers a copy to Microsoft directly, no web site delivery is needed. But for the 500 distros out there, Intel provides microcode for download, so those people can pick it up. Then why is everyone saying we need to update our BIOSs? I pretty sure Steve himself said in the podcast that Microsoft hadn't updated the microcode in Windows for years. Sorry, forgot which newsgroup I was in, I mean Steve Gibson of GRC.COM. That's not true. As one of my test cases, I booted a Linux LiveCD, one a couple years old, and the microcode level was 16. The Windows 10 16299.192 microcode level is 28. The very latest Linux one available, is 2a. Microsoft *is* providing OS level microcode, just not using the January 8, 2018 version quite yet. Neither is Linux, on all distros. Only the most modern got it so far. Linux in the distro package manager, provides a separate line item for "microcode.dat", and presumably selecting that does whatever magic is needed to make an initrd or similar. You would look in your package manager, to see if perhaps the microcode had been recently updated. In the Ubuntu test VM, I could indeed see the word "microcode" in a list of 500MB worth of patches. It was an item in there. I saw it fly by. And in Linux, I have a couple ways to check. Via dmesg | grep microcode, or via looking at cat /proc/cpuinfo or similar. Since I know some of the available revision numbers for my CPU, I'm able to tell whether a January patch was installed or not. *... Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 as-is puts my Core i7-4790K to revision 1C which seems likely to be really old since the 2018-01-08 microcode puts it to revision 23 and the 2017-11-17 microcode puts it to revision 22. If you use the Intel bootable floppy version, that one will in effect return the BIOS version, so you can determine the "lowest" revision the hardware can return at the moment. You could see if the BIOS put the 1C there or not. If the BIOS version is less than 1C, then Windows put the 1C there. ** Paul I only have a USB floppy drive and it doesn't seem to boot properly from that. I'll see if I can make a bootable CD out of it somehow. -- Brian Gregory (in England). |
#26
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On 26/01/2018 00:20, Brian Gregory wrote:
On 25/01/2018 17:15, Paul wrote: ... If you use the Intel bootable floppy version, that one will in effect return the BIOS version, so you can determine the "lowest" revision the hardware can return at the moment. You could see if the BIOS put the 1C there or not. If the BIOS version is less than 1C, then Windows put the 1C there. *** Paul I only have a USB floppy drive and it doesn't seem to boot properly from that. I'll see if I can make a bootable CD out of it somehow. Bootable CD using Nero's floppy emulation says revision 19. Maybe Windows 10 includes more recent microcode. -- Brian Gregory (in England). |
#27
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
Brian Gregory wrote:
I only have a USB floppy drive and it doesn't seem to boot properly from that. I'll see if I can make a bootable CD out of it somehow. My USB floppy seems to work OK. I can boot a memtest86+ floppy, using my USB floppy drive, on any machine past 2005 or so. It seemed somebody was coordinating the BIOS companies behind the scenes, to make all of them provide support in roughly the same year. Only the USB 1.1 era machines will provide stiff opposition to this. Once native USB2 (USB2 port on Southbridge) showed up, things improved. The BIOS has hard drive emulation of each device type. A 250MB USB ZIP drive becomes a pretend 250MB hard drive. A floppy drive over USB, becomes a 1.44MB hard drive. I think the idea is, the caller uses INT 0x13 "read sector" and the BIOS takes care of the details. If the device type is not recognized, then the BIOS will refuse to register it. An example of "refusing to register", is PCI SATA cards stuffed into year 2000 machines. The SATA card has a PROM with INT 0x13 code in it (allowing booting on modern machines). Even though the BIOS can see that blob, it absolutely refuses to recognize the SATA card and you can't even see it in the OS. The "P2B guy" reported this some years ago. Paul |
#28
|
|||
|
|||
GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software
On 26/01/2018 01:40, Paul wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote: I only have a USB floppy drive and it doesn't seem to boot properly from that. I'll see if I can make a bootable CD out of it somehow. My USB floppy seems to work OK. I can boot a memtest86+ floppy, using my USB floppy drive, on any machine past 2005 or so. It seemed somebody was coordinating the BIOS companies behind the scenes, to make all of them provide support in roughly the same year. Only the USB 1.1 era machines will provide stiff opposition to this. Once native USB2 (USB2 port on Southbridge) showed up, things improved. The BIOS has hard drive emulation of each device type. A 250MB USB ZIP drive becomes a pretend 250MB hard drive. A floppy drive over USB, becomes a 1.44MB hard drive. I think the idea is, the caller uses INT 0x13 "read sector" and the BIOS takes care of the details. If the device type is not recognized, then the BIOS will refuse to register it. An example of "refusing to register", is PCI SATA cards stuffed into year 2000 machines. The SATA card has a PROM with INT 0x13 code in it (allowing booting on modern machines). Even though the BIOS can see that blob, it absolutely refuses to recognize the SATA card and you can't even see it in the OS. The "P2B guy" reported this some years ago. ** Paul It booted into the DOS on the floppy but crashed with a single beep from the PC speaker when the DOS tried to load the program. Probably some cockup in the BIOS. -- Brian Gregory (in England). |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | Rate This Thread |
|
|