I think that’s a little extreme.
For intel to get in trouble legally with coffee Lake someone must be harmed. There’s been no known exploit so no one harmed that way.
The home market probably won’t see more than a few percent performance difference once this is patched. So again no one harmed.
Remember they aren’t liable if your processor can’t reach the same Cinebench R15 score or FPS in LootBox II that AT got. They just have to sell you a chip that runs at the base frequency and single core turbo at TDP advertised. That’s why you have no recourse when your HP or Dell 8700k PC ends up 15% slower than your favorite review because you only have mediocre cooling, a power limited mobo and they’ve locked the turbo down to maintain TDP.
Where they could be in trouble is corporate purchases. If they sold chips that had to meet certain performance requirements and they knew or should have known the fix could preclude that then they are in trouble.
For the rest of us it probably won’t effect us much so not buying needed PCs or staying off the inter webs to protect ourselves from an exploit that hasn’t been seen in the wild doesn’t seem like the smartest thing.
Another saying we have in the human spaceflight biz is, if you want zero risk in your mission stay home.
I can tell you that there are filings already! How successful they will be... That's another story.
Intel Hit With Three Class Action Lawsuits Related to Security Vulnerability
Alex Cranz
Today 4:50pm
As
Law.com first noted, a class action complaint was filed January 3rd in United States District Court for the
Northern District of California. Since then Gizmodo has found two additional class action complaints filed today (just eleven minutes apart)—one in the
District of Oregon and another in the
Southern District of Indiana.
All three complaints cite the security vulnerability as well as Intel’s failure to disclose it in a timely fashion. They also cite the supposed slowdown of purchased processors. However that is still up for debate. In a
press release today, Intel claimed it has “issued updates for the majority of processor products introduced within the past five years.” Moreover, it says the performance penalty is not as significant as
The Register initially claimed.
Intel continues to believe that the performance impact of these updates is highly workload-dependent and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time. While on some discrete workloads the performance impact from the software updates may initially be higher, additional post-deployment identification, testing and improvement of the software updates should mitigate that impact.
This claim—of things not being as dire as they seemed—was seconded by Google today. In a post on its Security Blog, Google claimed “we have found that microbenchmarks can show an exaggerated impact,” which seems to suggest that localized attempts to benchmark affected processors before and after the fix has been applied may not yield reliable results.
Intel continues to claim it is not the only CPU maker affected and has posited that CPUs made by AMD, Qualcomm, and ARM (Apple uses ARM architecture in its iPhone and iPad devices) are all potentially affected.
If you’re not sure if your device has been affected, be sure to back it up and
then perform all available updates.
Here are the three complaints, in full.
The 3 lawsuits are listed on the website. One of which starts out as follows:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTSOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANAINDIANAPOLIS DIVISIONJASON JONES
,
on behalf of himselfand all others similarly situated,Plaintiff,v.
INTEL CORPORATION
,Defendant.))))))))))Civil No. 1:18-CV-00029
CLASS ACTION COMPLAINTJURY TRIAL DEMANDEDCLASS ACTION COMPLAINT
Plaintiff Jason Jones (“Plaintiff”), on behalf of
himself and all others similarlysituated, by counsel, brings this Class Action Complaint against Defendant IntelCorporation
(“
Intel
”
or “Defendant”
), and alleges as follows:
INTRODUCTION
1.
Plaintiff brings this action against Intel on behalf of all persons in theState of Indiana
who purchased a defective Intel core processor (“CPUs”).
2.
Defendant Intel’s x86
-64x CPUs suffer from a security defect, whichcauses the CPUs to be exposed to troubling security vulnerabilities by allowing
potential access to extremely secure kernel data (the “Defect”). The only way to“patch” this vulnerability
requires extensive changes to the root levels of theOperating System which will dramatically reduce performance of the CPU. TheDefect renders the Intel x86-64x CPUs unfit for their intended use and purpose.The Defect exists in all Intel x86-64x CPUs manufactured since at least 2008. The
Case 1:18-cv-00029-TWP-MPB Document 1 Filed 01/04/18 Page 1 of 17 PageID #: 1
2x86-64x CPU is, and was, utilized in the majority of all desktop, laptop computers,and servers in the United States
3.
To date, Defendant has been unable or unwilling to repair the Defector offer Plaintiff and Class members a non-defective Intel CPU or reimbursementfor the cost of such CPU and the consequential damages arising from the purchase
and use of such CPUs. Indeed, there does not appear to be a true “fix” for the Defect.The security “patch,” while expected to cur
e the security vulnerabilities, will
dramatically degrade the CPU’s performance. Therefore, the only “fix” would be to
exchange the defective x86-64x processor with a device containing a processor notsubject to this security vulnerability. In essence, Intel x86-64x CPU owners are leftwith the unappealing choice of either purchasing a new processor or computercontaining a CPU that does not contain the Defect, or continuing to use a computerwith massive security vulnerabilities or one with significant performancedegradation.
4.
The CPUs Defendant manufactured and sold to Plaintiff and Classmembers were not merchantable and were not fit for the ordinary and particularpurposes for which such goods are used in that the CPUs suffer from a criticalsecurity defect, requiring an OS-level software patch that will degrade theperformance of the CPU.
5.
Having purchased a CPU that suffers from this Defect, Plaintiff andClass members suffered injury in fact and a loss of money or property as a result of
Defendant’s con
duct in designing, manufacturing, distributing and selling defective
Case 1:18-cv-00029-TWP-MPB Document 1 Filed 01/04/18 Page 2 of 17 PageID #: 2
3CPUs. Intel has failed to remedy this harm, and has earned and continues to earnsubstantial profit from selling defective CPUs.
Edit:
If you are using or planning to use NVME drives on your computer this would apply to you!
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