is it just me or did SPECTRE manifest @halvarflake's "weird machine" concept in real hardware? i hope someone's already working on a paper about the computational power of this machine.

Jan 11, 2018 · 2:30 PM UTC

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Replying to @paxteam @halvarflake
@paxteam Is the owl still around? ani
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maybe, only one way to find out ;)
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Replying to @paxteam @halvarflake
weird machines were coined by @sergeybratus a little bit at least, no? That's more recent history compared to ASLR :)
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Replying to @paxteam @halvarflake
for v2, afaics how much power you get in the end should mostly depend on what gadgets you have and how much register/memory control you have? mostly like normal attacks with gadgets, except you get more control over indirect calls, some things don't work, and there's a time limit
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Replying to @paxteam @halvarflake
hmm. does that qualify as a weird state? you could argue that, in the paper's terminology, it all happens in transitory states between sane states, and the CPU never actually moves into a weird state. (IOW: the CPU still behaves according to architectural spec.)
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Replying to @paxteam @halvarflake
After getting a name drop, +Owl!!!! Long time bud. Lots to catch up. SPECTRE, side channel wasn't a thing back then. Interesting times. I proposed ways to fix ROP by not having them to begin with but you can't tie security to profits. How about penalties? ;P