> Most of the cover letter here reads like an Intel whitepaper. That's not > the worst thing in the world, but I think it glosses over one very > important point: > > Had it been available, LASS alone would have mitigated Meltdown. > > Could we say this up front in a prominent place, please? I'm going to nitpick. :) Yes, LASS would have made Meltdown a far less major problem than it was, but I don't think that phrasing is fair. As I recall, LASS was literally invented as a "what would have been useful?" exercise in the wake of Meltdown. However, a less well known/researched area of Meltdown, which would not be addressed by LASS, is the ability to pend stores to read-only memory and proceed with the expectation that they'll success. Other things which would have helped would have been PKS (and this *was* asked for ahead of Skylake launching...) The other important thing about LASS is that it does cut off a whole class of sidechannels. This halts definitely-rogue speculation, but is useful for non-speculative security too. ~Andrew
