[Info-vax] Intel junk...Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

[JF Mezei]

On 2018-01-05 17:41, DaveFroble wrote:

> Now, as for Alpha, yes, OoO and such, but, the question would be, does it allow 
> "illegal" access to memory?  If Alpha does not allow loading memory it should 
> not into cache, then perhaps not a problem.


Meltdown also relies on the ability of an unprivileged process to flush
the CPU cache and then read it (to see whatever the first process has
read from illegal memory)..


Not sure why x86 allows unprivileged process to manage the CPU cache. If
Alpha does not allow this, then there would be no means for the first
process to use the "covert channel" to send each byte to a cooperative
process.