[Info-vax] Intel x86-64 Processor Design Security Vulnerability?

[DaveFroble]

Bob Gezelter wrote:
> On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 7:47:38 AM UTC-5, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> On Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 7:38:23 AM UTC-5, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>
>> [...snip...]
>>
>>  
>> p.s. I find the first one amusing. Why? A buddy of mine has be trying to convince people for more that a decade that AMD stole IP from Intel. Well, if it is a case of outright theft then one would expect the AMD chips to suffer in the same way as the Intel chips :-)
>>
>> Neil Rieck
>> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
>> http://neilrieck.net
> 
> Neil,
> 
> With all due respect, the PS has a fatal logic flaw.
> 
> The statement would certainly be true if the stolen IP were a complete set of masks (e.g., the well-known case of the Russian uVAX clone). If would also be true if the involved IP was that which is at the heart of the problem.
> 
> However, that does not exclude the possibility that some (emphasis: SOME) IP was misused somewhere else on the chip.
> 
> An example of that well-worn error: Some men are doctors; some men are tall, therefore some doctors are tall.
> 
> - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Well, maybe I'm not going senile after all.  I do seem to remember some things 
about such claims.

There was a time when customers could demand "second source" for products.  And 
so AMD was licensed (I believe) by Intel to produce x86 CPUs.

Now, those same customers would be sneered at by Intel.  "What, you won't buy 
out products?  Then just whose will you be able to buy?"  Note that the itanic 
was not licensed to others, and was Intel's attempt to corner the CPU market. 
Too bad for them that AMD-64 shot that attempt down in flames.  Perhaps if 
anyone copied something, it might have been Intel copying AMD-64?

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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