Reply to post: Re: Should Intel (and other chip makers) be held responsible for hardware flaws?

Here come the lawyers! Intel slapped with three Meltdown bug lawsuits

Ken Hagan Gold badge

Re: Should Intel (and other chip makers) be held responsible for hardware flaws?

"It's an interesting one, but I don't personally think that Intel should be held liable for this, as it's not an intentional bug."

I agree it is interesting, and I might even agree that Intel shouldn't be held liable, but if I did then I would have a different reason for doing so. The issue is not intent, but negligence. I don't think anyone close to the action is suggesting that Intel knew about this prior to mid-2017. It would be nice to think that our spooks knew about it before then, and distressing to imagine that the other side's spooks knew about it, but in neither case would we expect Intel to be informed. So the question is: is the flaw sufficiently obvious that we can call it negligence. Well ... given that it took just about everyone 20 years to work it out, I don't think we can call it obvious.

Oh, and I also agree that Intel's PR release was BS. I'd be happy to see them prosecuted for *that*. I'm also pretty unhappy about the timescale surrounding their CEO's share dealings.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon