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To: Paul Engel who wrote (39925)	11/11/1997 1:40:00 AM
From: Gary Ng	Respond to of 186894

Paul, Re: Better go check yout 5 MPH bumpers and be sure that they work properly. Or, "better shot youself to be sure that your life insurance get paid" Gary

To: Paul Engel who wrote (39925)	11/11/1997 2:12:00 AM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, On November 6, 1997 all Pentiums were perfectly good. And you now think that on Novemmer 10 all Pentiums are trash? With your record of objectivity, I expect you to declare Pentiums trash on the day Intel stops selling them. Joe

To: Paul Engel who wrote (39925)	11/11/1997 2:17:00 AM
From: James A. Shankland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

On November 6, 1997 all Pentiums were perfectly good. And you now think that on Novemmer 10 all Pentiums are trash? This is silly enough that I'm responding against my better judgment; I doubt I'll have anything further to say on the subject. There's been a massive security hole in (probably) all Pentium chips manufactured during the last several years. Before anyone knew about this security hole, it didn't matter, because no-one knew about it. Now everyone knows about it, so now it matters. Look at it another way. The Pentium has a "halt" instruction. You can't execute it in user mode; you get a privileged instruction trap. Presumably, the designers thought it was important that you not be able to execute the "halt" instruction in user mode, or they would have allowed it. Well, now you can. Just use the magic, 4-byte sequence instead of the traditional "halt" opcode, and you've halted the processor.

To: Paul Engel who wrote (39925)	11/11/1997 8:55:00 AM
From: Barry A. Watzman	Respond to of 186894

>re: "And now an illegal, meaningless, obscure code sequence has been unearthed that, when run on a Pentium, will produce a result similar to unplugging the computer." Interesting point, the effect of the "bug" is the same as the effect of a power failure. Anyone who does not have a UPS on their system really has no right to complain, a power failure is much more likely, and they have dismissed that possibility as not worth protecting against.