| They are both types of side-channel info leak attacks against CPUs. You must know some hella smart five year olds. (Which is why I wish that meme would die already, because the correct answer to the question is, "no".) But I'm not here just to make smart ass remarks, I think it ties into my experience reading the comments on a NYT story on the subject. 48 comments, and I think only one didn't demonstrate a severe lack of understanding. <smug>That's why I don't use cloud stuff! Told ya so!</smug>
Yeah, well, looks to me like you go to the wrong web page and you're pwnd. <outrage>They just want to sell you new hardware!</outrage>
Yup, twenty years all major chip makers have been sitting on this bug in the hopes they can sell you a new chip in 2018. Cyrix is getting the last laugh now! And so on. But you've probably got about 300 chars to explain it before your average non-technical reader glazes over. And you don't get to use words like "side-channel". Good luck! Buffer overflows were easy to explain in comparison: "when ya try to put ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, bad things happen. Developers aren't checking the size of their bag before they start shoveling." But this one? Hell, we've got Hacker News readers asking for a simplified explanation. And not to pick on you, jrullman, because that's a helpful summary, but that's the simplified explanation? And the reality is, yes, that's probably as simple an explanation as you're going to get. |