A complete category of speculative execution vulnerabilities targeting CPUs was revealed in 2018. They appeared quite devastating at that moment. However, the solutions were equally impactful. Speculative execution functioned as a method to enhance CPU speed, and eliminating those features led to considerable performance declines.

Currently, individuals are reassessing the balance. Ubuntu has deactivated certain safeguards, resulting in a 20% performance increase.

Following discussions between Intel and Canonical’s security divisions, we concur that mitigation for Spectre is no longer necessary for the GPU at the Compute Runtime level. At this stage, Spectre has been addressed within the kernel, and a distinct alert from the Compute Runtime build acts as a notice for those utilizing modified kernels lacking those updates. For these reasons, we believe that Spectre mitigations in Compute Runtime no longer provide sufficient security benefits to warrant the existing performance compromise.

I support this compromise. These attacks are challenging to execute, and extracting valuable data is not straightforward. There are significantly simpler methods to compromise systems.

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