Thursday, August 23rd 2018
Intel Gags Customers from Publishing Performance Impact of Microcode Updates
Much of the secret sauce that made Intel processors faster than AMD is going sour, as the cybersecurity community is finding gaping security vulnerabilities by exploiting features such as speculative execution. Intel's microcode updates that mitigate these vulnerabilities impact performance. Intel isn't too happy about public performance numbers put out by its customers, which it fears could blunt the competitive edge of its products. The company has hence updated the license terms governing the microcode update distribution to explicitly forbid its users from publishing comparative "before/after" performance numbers of patched processors.
The updated license for the microcode update has this controversial sentence (pay attention to "v"):
Some of Intel's biggest enterprise customers are cloud computing providers such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google, who have made it their duty to keep their customers informed about the performance impact of microcode updated processors, since it impacts their cost/performance when the scale is big enough. This gag is both unethical, and probably even illegal.
Source:
Bruce Perens (Blog)
The updated license for the microcode update has this controversial sentence (pay attention to "v"):
"You will not, and will not allow any third party to (i) use, copy, distribute, sell or offer to sell the Software or associated documentation; (ii) modify, adapt, enhance, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, change or create derivative works from the Software except and only to the extent as specifically required by mandatory applicable laws or any applicable third party license terms accompanying the Software; (iii) use or make the Software available for the use or benefit of third parties; or (iv) use the Software on Your products other than those that include the Intel hardware product(s), platform(s), or software identified in the Software; or (v) publish or provide any Software benchmark or comparison test results."
78 Comments on Intel Gags Customers from Publishing Performance Impact of Microcode Updates
In the whole scheme of things it's still ridiculous but probably happens all too often, we just happen to highlight and make this particular case a big deal.
Intel is apparently updating the EULA.
Also, this is far from over. we can expect nearly 60-70% performance loss in some scenarios with all of this mitigations for these current crop of hardware flaws fully in effect. most of users here might be 5% loss though on average usage models. Most high performance losses are very specific scenarios, like older software from 5+ years ago, and things like OpenGL.
You've very easily highlighted WHY INtel has taken this stance on publishing benchmarks. Kudos to you, sir!
typical Intel yip yap......only in America :D
Hint: If you didn't agree, it means nothing.You do realize that's only for guest os systems WITHOUT the microcode that you can't trust? Using software mitigations?
Way to cherry pick... :shadedshu: They are benching VM performance without the microcode vs with for pete sake.Only enterprise.
Just to see the cumulative effect these security issues have caused.
what Intel gains from L1-HT is mainly bandwidth, a.k.a. execution speed whereas AMD's L2 - which is what physical cores get - is not slower than L1-SMT apart from latency, 2.8ns>1.1ns. With the distinction of i9's AMD's physical cores are faster and more patent than Intel.
Intel HAS BACKED DOWN :)
EDIT: my bad, was on a phone and misread "then" as "they."
Watch as their user base starts dwindling because of such underhanded tactics.
So it is possible that the terms above could be used to restrict internal benchmarks being showcased against the competition - for servers & even if it is just enterprise - that's still wrong.
Just to be clear, the language is broad enough to target anyone downstream, so it's not as if only enterprsies are at risk.
This at a time when the competition is gaining ground on them seems less of a coincidence to me.
Then I would forget..
ill buy the new ram :P sounds fair to me.