Re: Intel Pentium Bug

[s335029 () student uq edu au (Chris Pascoe)]

On Fri, 7 Nov 1997, Kragen "Skewed" Sitaker wrote:

> > [ Bit about microcode updates ]
>
> If Intel releases code to update the microcode, someone else will figure
> out how to do it, too.  That means we can look forward to a future of
> microcode back-doors and viruses.  (How big is the microcode on a Pentium,
> I wonder?)

Unless, of course the microcode update is possible, but requires the
processor to be physically in another device - ie a normal PC motherboard
could not do it, and a specific programmer which was only distributed to
reputable companies had to be used.  But then the problem still arises in
that someone may get to your CPU before you purchase it and re-microcode
it before purchase.

Does anyone have any details which support the microcode update methods?
I have just done a brief search on "microcode update AND pentium" on
Intel's WWW site and the only matches which came up were to do with their
adaptive LAN card technology.

Chris