https://gizmodo.com/intels-never-ending-spectre-saga-continues-to-be-a-hot-18...   


Intel's Never-Ending Spectre Saga Continues to Be a Hot Mess

Alex Cranz
Senior Reviews Editor

This isn't some little dog review, this is the MAIN REVIEWS EDITOR for Gizmodo writing an accurate chronology of events suitable to be entered as testimony in one of the current three main class action lawsuits against Intel and Microsoft.

We’re nearly a month since The Register first revealed that every single major processor in devices today is subject to a series of harrowing security vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown. Today, in light of news that Intel informed foreign interests of the vulnerabilities before the US government, and that Microsoft is pulling its latest patch from Intel due to some heinous bugs, we thought we’d revisit the saga and what you can (and cannot) do to protect your data.

The saga up until today...    https://gizmodo.com/intels-never-ending-spectre-saga-continues-to-be-a-hot-18...


Click on this and read this accurate chronology which makes it clear that both Intel and MS delayed, obfuscated and stalled for months, and then lied a lot to our government and to others.

When you realize that Wintel actually gave out better and more timely information to the Chinese than to the US Government, you realize the shere depth of the trouble Intel and Microsoft are going to be in when the inevitable "top secret data loss" doggie poo hits the fan over Intel and Microsoft allowing our Government to remain vulnerable to these exploits for MONTHS after they had told Lenovo all about how to functionally get to it and use it (and the Chinese then had lots and lots of time to go out and get into anything they wanted during that long period of delay).

   click on it and read it, then read the comments below it as some are real doozies to read .....

https://gizmodo.com/intels-never-ending-spectre-saga-continues-to-be-a-hot-18...    

https://gizmodo.com/intels-never-ending-spectre-saga-continues-to-be-a-hot-18...

 (copy and paste THE ENTIRE ADDRESS to your browser bar, it is too long to be a click link)

Be more specific, it has the [url]....[/url} already.

Do you mean "Insert Hyperlink" or "Insert FTP link" that sit next to the image insert?

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 01/31/18 at 01:50:25:

It has them cause I added them.

https://liliputing.com/2018/01/windows-defender-will-start-treating-scareware...

Microsoft has announced that its antivirus and anti-malware software will start treating free applications that try to scare you into upgrading to paid software as “unwanted software.”

That means they’ll be removed by Windows Defender, just like any other malware.

Microsoft says it’s expanding its definition of unwanted software to include program “that display coercive messaging” such as reporting “errors in an exaggerated or alarming manner about the user’s system and requires users to pay for fixing the errors.”

The most common type of application targeted by this move are so-called “optimizer” or “cleaner” apps that are supposed to improve system performance, clean your disk drive, or perform other optimizations.


What example does MS give for the sort of "non-approved" stuff they are going to discard going forward?  

McAffee "Spy Sheriff Antivirus" free to try products

Let me translate this for you ...... we (MS) are getting tagged for acting a lot like malwares in how we have been doing some stuff lately by a whole host of "free to try" AV & malware detection products.  

Example:   Right now you can't even run our latest patches without getting multiple flags from your "non-approved" old style anti-virus programs saying that your BIOS is under attack (hey, it is true someone other than you is changing your BIOS settings in a drastic fashion -- but WE are the ones doing these various malware-like things).

After a few weeks of intensive PR training imposed on the public we will quietly remove all third party AV softwares from all of your machines, and make you completely dependent on MS AV products (MS Defender) so that we can tweek and control the Defender AV's reaction in advance to mute out what they will send out urgent user detection alarms over.

Then we can proceed with our massive midnight BIOS rewrites and abrupt pull backs and we will be completely buffered by the Defender software itself so you won't even KNOW what we just removed completely, defeated or added to this and that and to the other (removed twice and replaced 3x no less)  .......

  ..... just trust us ......

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 01/31/18 at 18:47:13:


Does that mean it'll rip it's own guts out?      

https://liliputing.com/2018/02/windows-10-s-windows-10-pro-upgrades-cost-49-e...



But according to a report from Brad Sams, now we know UP FRONT how much the upgrade will really cost you when the current neat sounding free MS offer expires:               hint:  they end sooner than you might think

For the most part the documents seem to explain how much PC makers will have to pay for Windows licenses that they pre-install on notebook, tablet, and desktop computers. But knowing that number helps explain the cost of some computers.

For example, a Windows license for notebooks and 2-in-1 tablets with Intel Atom, Celeron, and Pentium chips only costs PC makers $25… as long as that computer has 4GB of RAM or less and 32GB of solid state storage or less. The same restrictions apply to small all-in-one desktops with 17 inch or smaller screens.

Double the solid state storage or use a hard drive up to 500GB and the price of a Windows license goes up to $45.

Add a more powerful processor or more memory and it goes even higher. All told, Sams says there are 5 levels:

Entry – $25
Value – $45
Core – $65.45
Core+ – $86.66
Advanced – $101

Sams says those new prices should start kicking in April 2nd.



So, for the same exact software MS has come up with a sliding Pay Me scale, simply charging you up to 4x more if you are making a nicer machine.

https://liliputing.com/2018/02/windows-defender-becomes-windows-security-chan...

Windows Defender is now ready to replace itself and to kill off all your other old style AV products that kept reporting MS is acting like malware while fiddling with your BIOS settings at night.  

It is now called Windows Security .....   and it will scrub Windows Defender right off your machine right along with all other old style AV products.



on the same day this comes out



https://liliputing.com/2018/02/intel-releases-stable-spectre-patch-skylake-cp...

At the same time, Intel is signalling they want to try to microcode patch your Skylake based computers again ...... Intel sez -- "please, just trust us, we really got it right this time (or maybe we just got it slightly better, as we aren't totally yet sure yet but we don't think it does much for anything but for the very very few very most current Skylake machines). All the rest are still unpatched, but now maybe they should stop rebooting all the time".



You will get both of these wonderful new items put on your machine automatically over the next week (auto-updated at night while you are sleeping).