Question Well I had this lawyer mail me something about a class action suite against AMD...:O

[funboy6942]

I filled it out, all 3 of them for I had bought a 8320, 8350, and a 8370, and I guess my first check, or for all 3 not sure, but I glad I took the 20 min to fill it out and send it back, for I thought I was going to get 10-15 bucks, but nope

Guess they pay you to buy AMD

 

[BigDaveX]

Okay, you asked for it:

NYTimes posted an article about Intel CPU fixes from last May.

*Gasp* Intel caught lying again? Say it aint so! ;) I dont know how much truth there is to this, maybe someone can decipher whats being said here, or call BS On it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/technology/intel-chip-fix.html @btarunr maybe make a news article out of this?

www.techpowerup.com

We only discussed that on this forum fairly recently. And that's just one glaring example.

I personally don't care if Intel gets a slap-on-the-wrist lawsuit that sees people paid $60/CPU or so. I'm jumping on a poster for flying to the defense of Intel when they (Intel) are clearly in an indefensible position.

Where exactly was I defending Intel? If you didn't notice, I was actually defending AMD - and over Bulldozer, of all things - earlier in the thread.

 

[TheELF]

Nonsense! You're deflecting.

Did Intel claim their CPUs to be secure? Yes or no? And what's with this "oh they're secure, just not 100% secure" nonsense? You want Intel to run ads like that?

If you have a link were Intel claims their CPUs to be secure post it,they claim that security is a big priority for them and they list all the thing they do to ensure security but nowhere do they claim that they have a secure CPU.

invulnerable=no vulnerabilities at all=100% secure.
Nobody wants their CPUs to be "invulnerable". = Nobody wants their CPUs to be with no vulnerabilities at all = Nobody wants their CPUs to be 100% secure

 

[Topweasel]

I presume because in order for a class action lawsuit against Intel to have any chance of succeeding, you'd have to prove that they knowingly sold defective products. Which they might well have done, but actually proving it could be tricky.

There is also room for issues that even if there isn't that malice behind their actions if there is recognition that they should have seen the issue coming, or they did not research or test their product enough in a given area vs. the impact. Its not just disregarding data that can get you in trouble.

Sure why don't you start a class action suit to make the law decide what secure means because intel's CPUs are secure they are just not 100% secure.

I am surprised they haven't but there is probably a bit of a don't rock the boat going on there. A.) Intel has been extremely petty at times. If you want to see what happens when an OEM or Customer rocks the boat read up on MicronPC. B.) Intel sells its CPU's almost like how the whole Medical industry sells its services and drugs. For the one on one with no Healthcare its super expensive. Once friend of the industry (Health Insurance) gets involved prices get much cheaper really quick (negotiated price my butt). Intel's equipment costs are higher than they should be for us but they have been known to give large discounts to its larger customers. My guess is they have been offering "replacement" equipment on even steeper discounts to keep customers and orders and to keep them from making a big stink.

Are you saying that Intel claimed their CPUs were secure, while knowing perfectly well of the specific vulnerabilities that ended up being found? Because that's the standard of proof that would have to be met for a class action suit to have any chance of succeeding.

I mentioned this earlier but there are tons of examples of class action lawsuits where ineptitude regardless of malice has cost companies in class action suites. Some of these vulnerabilities may not hold up to that. But the IME vulnerabilities and Meltdown I feel would.

Not that it really matters to me one way or the other - hell, my main rig uses a Haswell-E, one of the affected CPUs, so if anything I'd actually stand to benefit from a potential class action suit - my main point was just that these scenarios generally only tend to result in payouts when either the defendant decides it's not worth the trouble of contesting the case in court (as AMD probably did), or there's proof of actual wrongdoing that goes beyond just incompetence.

Incompetence depending on impact can and has cost companies in the past. This is a more unique situation. Beyond stock it might be a reason intel is paying bounties and for reports of vulnerabilities on AMD CPU's. It can act as a defense mechanism, true they found this but our competitors also found to have this that and the other thing as well. It's just not something you can see coming till its already here.

But I point back to Meltdown. Here you have a vulnerability, where you have a security check, as something asks for access to data, but you give the data away before actually doing the check all in the name of efficiency. I would challenge that if they knew that they needed to do a security check on request in the first place, handing out that data before receiving confirmation on security access to the data, would be considered gross incompetence. It would be like a security company giving access to thieves to your house because they said they were cops before even asking to see identification and only asking for that identification as they are leaving. Its a tricky situation. These are in the end these are simple products that go into other hardware and the kind of access someone nefarious would actually have to the equipment would be limited and Intel implemented the processing techniques before cloud computing was a twinkle in anyone's eyes. But they were selling and still developing CPU's using these techniques long afterwards, some specifically for this market (remember they were selling in limited quantity Skylake-SP to Amazon solely for AWS almost a year before launch). If they sold their CPU's as "secure" at any point, then I would say that process that does a security check but doesn't actually confirm it till its already granted it access, would count as gross incompetence and not secure.

 

[Topweasel]

Come on guys, when the verdict against AMD came out I remember many on these forums saying it was a BS ruling. Sounds like these payments have a sizable chance of not happening if there was a different judge.

It falls on the courts for not understanding techs. It's like the payouts for storage. It was BS. On one hand I get where the complaint comes from. But I hate when courts get too involved in tech. Hell as much as I don't like Apple being different for Apple sake. The EU decision to limit everyone to USB-C is a bad choice. Here there should be room for companies to design different types of architectures and still be able to make generalizations that people would understand. How is this much different then previous PR ratings (side comment, big fan even with Intel's and AMD's history of product naming to get aways from "speed" values of their CPU's as part of their names).

 

[funboy6942]

That's why I did not participate in the settlement.

I did it because for one, I thought it was only going to be for 10-15 bucks, enough to by a few monsters, but the real reason is if it was going to be that, it was less the lawyers were going to be able to keep, and since I spent that money on the AMD products, I felt they would like me to get the money and buy some monsters and enjoy what I got from it all. If I didnt do it, it just would of been more money they kept for the greedy lawyer hands that did all this bs to them, and I didnt want that for there had to be a lot like you that didnt, and thats just more money in their pockets, and besides, Im glad I kinda did do it in the end, for we were low on food in the house, and this helped us a lot, Im sure if AMD knew what happened to the money I was given they would of liked it, rather help pay a lawyers mansion mortgage, or bought some wine with what I would of gotten, had I not filled out the form in the first place.

It sucked that they went and sued them for this all, for I was able to do more with my pc then I could ever do with the Intel cpu I had in a rig, for I could have multiple things running at one time, like installing 5 or more programs/games at the same time without it batting a eye doing it, and did something else while it was doing that after a fresh install, when if I did more then 2 things at a time with my Intel rig, it became as slow as molasses. But again, when I got the letter, I was not expecting ass much as I did for buying the 4 cpus I did over the years, for 6 cores, 8 cores, the sucker was great, not as great as my Intel for games, but it was like a all arounder cpu that took a heck of a overclock if needed, and just kept chugging along and took all I could ever throw at them. Though I must admit, my 5ghz cpu, I wasnt happy with between cost/performance, and would struggle to hit the 5ghz it was to be able to do, I couldnt even stock clock it to that without my pc crashing after making it run just a the 5ghz in bios. The other 3 however, best bang for the buck, and only a few months ago I finally replaced my 8370 my son was using for my old 1600, and I still feel the 8370 was a better cpu then my 1600, little slower in the game department, but again on the 8370, I could do more at the same time then I can with the 1600. Now my 3600x, I just love to death atm. Cannot wait to see what jump going to the 4xxxx series has to offer us/me.

 

[Hitman928]

I guess you all weren't aware. . .

Intel facing 32 lawsuits over Meltdown and Spectre CPU security flaws

Shareholders also allege insider trading

www.theverge.com

Intel CPU Class Action - Doyle APC Law Firm

The Intel CPU class action lawsuits were transferred to the District of Oregon and assigned to the Honorable Michael H. Simon for consolidated pretrial

www.doyleapc.com

I'll go out on a limb and say Intel ends up agreeing to a settlement.

 

[Ready4Droid]

That's crazy, lol. That's after lawyer fees. Did you feel that hard done by then calling it a core even though it shared a decoder? It's so hard to define what components are required to be considered a 'core'. Does it have to have its own FPU? ALU? Decoder? Register set? They were much more than threads (and scaled better than threads). Seems like people bought a cheap product and expected it to be faster than it was. It is just slow due to the architecture and was prices cheap to compete at it's performance.

 

[moinmoin]

Come on guys, when the verdict against AMD came out I remember many on these forums saying it was a BS ruling. Sounds like these payments have a sizable chance of not happening if there was a different judge.

It's an out of court settlement for a long running class action suite that AMD obviously had no interest in prolonging any more. At some point the value is too little and the cost for lawyers too high to warrant pursuing a just ruling at all cost.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

It's an out of court settlement for a long running class action suite that AMD obviously had no interest in prolonging any more. At some point the value is too little and the cost for lawyers too high to warrant pursuing a just ruling at all cost.

Correct, my comment was regarding people fighting over why Intel has not settlements likes this.
Intel doesn't likely due to this case being a odd scenario.

 

[moinmoin]

Correct, my comment was regarding people fighting over why Intel has not settlements likes this.
Intel doesn't likely due to this case being a odd scenario.

Does anybody know if Intel has in-house lawyers? Bigger companies often have their own lawyers, and those (and the action suites they are in charge of) are essentially fixed costs to the company then.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Does anybody know if Intel has in-house lawyers? Bigger companies often have their own lawyers, and those (and the action suites they are in charge of) are essentially fixed costs to the company then.

I'm sure they do and I'm sure their compensation is a set rate, as in if there are zero trials they get paid the same amopunt as if there are 100s of trials. Thats the way big companies roll.

 

[DisEnchantment]

Does anybody know if Intel has in-house lawyers? Bigger companies often have their own lawyers, and those (and the action suites they are in charge of) are essentially fixed costs to the company then.

It is very common for very large companies to have experienced legal advisers and attorneys as part of the organisation's permanent staff.
Day to day work however gets usually outsourced to 3rd party firms who handle the cases and represent them on their behalf and they avoid dirt in court if some litigations don't go well.
It is actually the only cost effective way if you are doing business across the globe and dealing with a multitude of contrasting regulations in different countries/states/regions.
At least that is what is being done in the several companies I have been with

 

[blckgrffn]

Thanks for the heads up. I found my check in the mail today too, for $60.xx.

When I got the postcard, I checked my digital receipts from Microcenter and saw I had purchased two back in the day (2013) for FX-8320 bundles. The CPU was $99.99, a 970a board to go with was $59.99.

Ha, I guess that deal just got "hotter". Both bundles are are still in use as well, my sister uses one as daily driver at home (I am still using her previous AM2+ 940 in a PC for my 6yo daughter, just got demoted from bike trainer PC!) and it the primary gaming PC for a good buddy of mine.

Like others, I filed for the settlement because it was already done. I would never have advocated pressing the issue in the first place. And I only claimed what I had receipts for, as I am sure everyone did (ha).

 

[DrMrLordX]

Where exactly was I defending Intel?

I wasn't talking about you. Trying to avoid the obvious call-out.

If you have a link were Intel claims their CPUs to be secure post it

Holy guacamole, I JUST DID.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...e-about-intel-cpu-fixes-from-last-may.261089/

Every time Intel patches something, they claim their CPUs are secure due to mitigations/microcode updates/whatever. Then they're shown to be insecure again. Also take a look at this gem hosted on their website right now:

How Intel Contributes to Zero Trust

While Zero Trust mandates a “never trust” mindset, you must establish something to trust (but verify!) as the basis for your strategy.

www.intel.com

@Hitman928

32 lawsuits? Interesting. I hadn't heard anything about those. Thanks for bringing them up.

 

[Hitman928]

I wasn't talking about you. Trying to avoid the obvious call-out.



Holy guacamole, I JUST DID.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...e-about-intel-cpu-fixes-from-last-may.261089/

Every time Intel patches something, they claim their CPUs are secure due to mitigations/microcode updates/whatever. Then they're shown to be insecure again. Also take a look at this gem hosted on their website right now:

How Intel Contributes to Zero Trust

While Zero Trust mandates a “never trust” mindset, you must establish something to trust (but verify!) as the basis for your strategy.

www.intel.com

@Hitman928

32 lawsuits? Interesting. I hadn't heard anything about those. Thanks for bringing them up.

If you read the updates they're in the process of consolidating the cases before moving forward with the lawsuit, but it is still happening.

 

[RetroZombie]

One word.... Advertising. Enough said ?

Well Mark, if thats just that what better advertising than buy new stuff because of the vulnerabilities. Even kill the competition read:refurbished computers/market and upgrade often because reasons

PlunderVolt was reported on these forums. Probably in the Xeon sticky.

Why the forums, not good enough to be reported in the news? Even article level of importance to explain what's going on, outside of a company explanation in a press release.

Last post from that forum is from gideon, march 22, and yours before him. That's how important security is for the people. And the word there is the vulnerabilities are only important in the server space, and here we are talking to any one in the world through servers and felling very secure with my online laptop because it's not a server...

I presume because in order for a class action lawsuit against Intel to have any chance of succeeding, you'd have to prove that they knowingly sold defective products.

But they keep selling those cpus even after the vulnerabilities were known, so what more knowingly do you want? And more importantly before providing any mitigation or work around for them for months.

For the record, I think AMD had nothing to answer for in this particular lawsuit

But the law suite is a complete non sense, i could also say the core 2 duo is a single core cpu since both cpu cores share one large l2 cache and that there isn't one single core version of it to prove it, or the core 2 duo quad is not quad core at all it's a fake quad core cpu since it glues two dual core cpus together. How stupid it is, but i guess the court could go for the stupid ruling.

Intel doesn't claim that their CPUs are invulnerable that's why nobody can charge them for their CPUs not being invulnerable.
AMD claimed that that their CPUs had 6 or 8 cores and judges agreed that this was false.

Well so intel cpus are working as intended? Even worst.
But the amd cpu cores are real cores, where does the os detect them as quad physical cpu cores and eight logical ones?

Not that it really matters to me one way or the other - hell, my main rig uses a Haswell-E, one of the affected CPUs, so if anything I'd actually stand to benefit from a potential class action suit

Well i would said the 6th gen and up were eligible for any of the hypotheses i put on my post, intel still keeps those around and selling them as 'new', i would say that broadwell would be out of this because of that, but i will still say this, it was told by intel that with the tick tock strategy we would see one new cpu architecture every 2 years, but since the vulnerabilities affect all their cpu line, new architecture where?

I guess you all weren't aware. . .

Well where was this announced in the websites news? First time i see this. Why hide this stuff?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Well where was this announced in the websites news? First time i see this. Why hide this stuff?

Just so you know, these forums are only tenuously linked to the main site. We discuss things here that don't make it on the Anandtech front page and vice versa.

 

[TheELF]

I wasn't talking about you. Trying to avoid the obvious call-out.



Holy guacamole, I JUST DID.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...e-about-intel-cpu-fixes-from-last-may.261089/

Every time Intel patches something, they claim their CPUs are secure due to mitigations/microcode updates/whatever. Then they're shown to be insecure again. Also take a look at this gem hosted on their website right now:

How Intel Contributes to Zero Trust

While Zero Trust mandates a “never trust” mindset, you must establish something to trust (but verify!) as the basis for your strategy.

www.intel.com

@Hitman928

32 lawsuits? Interesting. I hadn't heard anything about those. Thanks for bringing them up.

No you did not,
Strengthening Security
by default means that security is not at 100% otherwise what would you need to strengthen?!
As I said, they only list the things they do to provide security,nowhere do they state complete security.

 

[TheELF]

But they keep selling those cpus even after the vulnerabilities were known, so what more knowingly do you want? And more importantly before providing any mitigation or work around for them for months.

Yes and car manufacturers knowingly sell cars you can die in,as long as they do enough for passenger security to meet the letter of the law there is no problem.
The same goes for CPU security,as long as the CPU is secure enough in the eye of the law you can't sue them,well you can sue but you won't win.

 

[VirtualLarry]

as long as the CPU is secure enough in the eye of the law

LOL. Is this what passes for computer "security" these days now?

 

[DrMrLordX]

No you did not,

Read the techpowerup forum post. It links a NYT article and a whitepaper that proves Intel declared a bug fixed and then silently patched it out six months later. They knew the flaw still existed in their hardware but declared it fixed anyway. They lied. Blatantly.

Strengthening Security

Which is something they are not doing at all. TDT can't cover up for the fact that their CPUs and/or platforms have unfixed and/or unfixable security flaws. It is a complete joke! They claim to intercept threat vectors with TDT, which completely ignores the fact that there are still major Intel hardware installations with serious security flaws in them.

It speaks volumes to me that you wouldn't answer my question. You tried to make me answer it myself, which coincidentally I already did, albeit earlier in the thread responding to a different poster. I wanted to see what you had to say. Are you going to sit there and defend Intel when they straight-up lie to the public? Apparently so.

 

[Replay]

Have a look at the ebay prices for FX 8350's. Paid $33 for one with a missing pin 18 months ago & went looking for another one.... The current selling prices are up to $365 new in box, $300 open box, $210 used.

 

[therealmongo]

Idiots will be idiots, nothing more to be said unfortunately

Im referencing those who defend the indefensible .........................

 

[blckgrffn]

Have a look at the ebay prices for FX 8350's. Paid $33 for one with a missing pin 18 months ago & went looking for another one.... The current selling prices are up to $365 new in box, $300 open box, $210 used.

eBay and old parts has gone crazy. Is anyone paying these prices? You can get an refurb Precision Workstation with solid components for less. Where did all the PC parts from ~2012-2017 go?

 

[Maxima1]

eBay and old parts has gone crazy. Is anyone paying these prices? You can get an refurb Precision Workstation with solid components for less. Where did all the PC parts from ~2012-2017 go?

Interesting. Apparently yes. I see bids above $100, and many from China listing pretty high prices indicating they can get it. Did not realize people were this stupid. Maybe with AMD's better image, people assume they can't be much worse than Ryzen?