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Intel found a flaw in AMD’s Spectre mitigation, AMD issues fix

Source: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/newsroom-media

Intel’s security team found a flaw in AMD’s old ‘LFENCE/JMP’ patch to mitigate Spectre vulnerabilities across several generations of Ryzen and Threadripper CPUs.

In response, AMD issued a security bulletin recommending the use of alternate mitigation options. The update also had additional information for software developers.

Spectre is a type of security flaw that affects almost all modern Intel and AMD processors. It can potentially allow attackers to access sensitive data without detection. Worse, last week researchers found that Intel and Arm processors are susceptible to a new kind of ‘Spectre v2’ attack.

Intel uncovered the issue with LFENCE/JMP while investigating the new vulnerability. AMD implemented LFENCE/JMP in 2018 to mitigate against Spectre, but Intel’s researchers found it doesn’t adequately protect against the threat.

As per AMD’s security bulletin, the weakness in LFENCE/JMP spans the following chips:

  • Gen 1, 2, and 3 AMD Epyc processors
  • AMD Ryzen 2000, 3000, and 5000 series desktop processors
  • AMD Ryzen 4000 and 5000 series desktop processors with Radeon graphics
  • 2nd and 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper
  • AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro
  • AMD Athlon 3000 series mobile processors with Radeon graphics
  • AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000 series mobile processors
  • 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen mobile processor with Radeon graphics
  • AMD Ryzen 3000, 4000, and 5000 series with Radeon graphics
  • AMD Athlon, Athlon 3000, and Ryzen 3000 mobile processors with Radeon graphics for Chromebook

You can view the full list here.

The researchers who found the flaw performed the exploit on Linux, but so far there haven’t been examples of the using the exploit on platforms like Windows.

Finally, The Verge points out that patches for Spectre-related vulnerabilities have been known to cause performance issues, especially on older hardware. However, benchmarking platform Phoronix tested the impact of initial patches for Intel and AMD chips in 2019 and found AMD CPUs were less affected than Intel.

Image credit: AMD

Source: Tom’s Hardware, AMD Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Y2K22 bug is setting some Honda and Acura vehicle clocks back 20 years

A ‘Y2K22’ bug is reportedly hitting various Honda and Acura vehicles released from 2006 to 2014 in the U.S, Canada, and U.K.

First reported by Jalopnik (via The Verge), people report that the clocks in some of these vehicles jumped back in time some 20 years on New Years Day. Reports have cropped up on Honda and Acura forums, Twitter, and other social media.

Vehicles hit by the problem show the wrong date on the navigation system (typically the year 2002) and a time that’s several hours off. Some vehicles with a separate radio clock also show an incorrect time there as well. Attempts to manually tweak the time and date don’t seem to work as the next time owners start their cars, it’s back to 2002.

While many vehicles are impacted, not all are — I drive a 2006 Honda vehicle but haven’t experienced a clock issue, likely because my vehicle doesn’t have a built-in GPS system (more on how the GPS system might be causing the problem below).

A post on the CR-V Owners Club forum shares two responses from Honda USA and Honda UK:

Honda USA:

“We have escalated the NAVI Clock Issue to our Engineering Team and they have informed us that you will experience issue from Jan 2022 thru August 2022 and then it will auto-correct. Please be assured that we will continue to monitor this and will advise you if a fix is available before that time.”

Honda UK:

“We have just received some more information regarding this and were advised that the Honda technical department are currently working on this.

Once there is a fix for this issue Honda authorized dealers will be made aware of it and will be able to assist with this at that point.

A service bulletin will be issued to our dealers from Honda UK on how to fix this.

As such it would be best to check with your local Honda authorized dealer for any updates as they would have the latest information for this and will be able to assist once the fix is released.

They can also contact the Honda technical department for additional assistance with this if necessary.

You can see the nearest Honda authorized dealers and their contact details by using the link below.”

The statements are somewhat contradictory, with Honda USA saying there isn’t a fix but that the issue should “auto-correct” in August. Honda UK, on the other hand, indicated the company was working on a fix but didn’t have a timeline for its availability.

Jalopnik notes that a coding issue could be behind the problem. The explanation is somewhat lengthy, but the condensed version is that GPS systems use a starting point (sometimes called an epoch) to determine the date and time. The start point uses a string of 10 binary digits that represent the current week, starting at zero and ending at 1,023. At 1,024, the system should reset to zero — there’s a widescale GPS week number rollover every 19.7 years, the most recent of which happened on April 6th, 2019. It’s possible that Honda’s navigation system didn’t account for a rollover that happened on New Year’s Day, leading systems to return to the beginning of the calendar.

The Verge notes that this isn’t the first time that Honda and Acura vehicles have had strangle clock issues. On August 16th, 2017, navigations systems on older Honda and Acura models failed and were mysteriously stuck on ‘0:00.’

Source: Jalopnik, The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Pixel 6 bug crashes apps, plays screeching sound when using external DAC

Google’s Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are pretty great phones but have their fair share of issues too. Unfortunately for audiophiles who like to get the best quality sound out of their phone with an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the Pixel 6 line’s issues are a major problem.

According to Android Police, several Pixel 6 and 6 Pro owners report that a bug with the phones prevents using external Hi-Fi DACs over the USB-C port. The bug causes several music apps to play no sound and crash — those that don’t crash play a screeching sound instead.

Reports about the problem first emerged shortly after the Pixel 6 launched. Some hopeful users waited for Google to fix the problem with the December security patch — unfortunately, Google didn’t. Worse, the search giant has yet to acknowledge the problem posted to the Google Issue Tracker.

For those unfamiliar with DACs and Android audio processing, most modern Android phones have a built-in DAC for processing audio. However, that DAC isn’t powerful enough for high-res audio files, plus Android’s audio stack limits audio to 28 or 48kHz sampling rates. Android Police notes that high-res audio files have sampling rates of 192kHz.

A few DACs do seem to work on the Pixel 6 series, but they don’t bypass Android’s sound processing, which means users miss out on the benefits of high-res audio.

The DAC issue is one of several significant issues still plaguing the Pixel 6 series, even with the December security patch delivering numerous bug fixes. Hopefully, Google can remedy these issues soon.

Source: Google Issue Tracker Via: Android Police