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GRC's Spectre and Meltdown testing software



 
 
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  #16  
Old January 22nd 18, 07:44 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
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Posts: 2,447
Default 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
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  #17  
Old January 22nd 18, 08:35 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Diesel
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Posts: 937
Default 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.



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  #18  
Old January 22nd 18, 11:42 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Michael Logies
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Posts: 225
Default 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  
Old January 22nd 18, 09:51 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Doomsdrzej[_2_]
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Posts: 262
Default 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  
Old January 22nd 18, 10:27 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old January 23rd 18, 03:14 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Doomsdrzej[_2_]
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Posts: 262
Default 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  
Old January 25th 18, 05:36 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Brian Gregory[_2_]
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Posts: 166
Default 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  
Old January 25th 18, 05:56 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Mr. Man-wai Chang
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Posts: 1,941
Default 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?

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  #24  
Old January 25th 18, 06:15 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old January 26th 18, 01:20 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Brian Gregory[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 166
Default 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  
Old January 26th 18, 01:42 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Brian Gregory[_2_]
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Posts: 166
Default 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  
Old January 26th 18, 02:40 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default 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  
Old January 26th 18, 05:33 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Brian Gregory[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 166
Default 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).
 




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