Intel Faces Scrutiny as Questions Swirl Over Chip Security<br />One widely distributed barb came from Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, who posted a testy message last<br />week advising Intel to “take a long hard look” at its chips “and actually admit that they have issues instead of writing P. R.<br />blurbs that say that everything works as designed.”<br />Major users of Intel chips — including Apple and the cloud computing arms of Google<br />and Amazon — have said they deployed security fixes recommended by Intel and so far they have not reported the sharp performance slowdowns of the sort some experts projected.<br />While Meltdown’s effects can be mitigated with updated operating systems, countering Spectre requires more complex steps like updating computer code stored in the chips themselves — or in some applications like web browsers, Intel recommends inserting special instructions in places<br />that security professionals said may be hard to identify
