Re: Don't buy a new Intel based system for a while?
The Spectre paper goes into great detail, but there's a summary here.
JavaScript isn't necessarily interpreted - the example exploit takes advantage of the JIT compiler in Chrome whose output is predictable machine-language instructions.
In the same way, the eBPF JIT compiler can be used to inject known code into the kernel, if eBPF is enabled.
The temporary workround is to reduce the resolution of timers available to JavaScript (to make the cache differences harder to spot). A longer-term resolution will involve, amongst other things, changing the JIT compilers to emit code that includers speculative execution barriers (where relevant and available).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
