Leaking Secrets Through Modern Branch Predictor in the Speculative World

"...BranchSpectre side channels can take advantage of much simpler code patterns than the ones used in Spectre attacks. We present an extensive BranchSpectre code gadget analysis on a set of popular real-world application code bases followed by a demonstration of real-world side channel attack on OpenSSL. The evaluation results show substantial wider existence and higher exploitability of BranchSpectre code patterns in real-world software..."

1. Overlapping but separate versioning numbering of firmware blobs, Intel package version, and distro-specific package version.

2. Tracking binary blobs and detailing their exact changes and what each change does.

If truth be told, this is sheet kabuki theater.