Newly Documented Intel Speculative Memory Management Bug Affects All Generations Of Intel "Core" CPUs, Makes ROWHAMMERing Much Easier

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A weakness in the way addresses are speculated in the memory subsystem of Intel CPUs makes all manner of attacks much easier to pull off (archived). Particularly ROWHAMMER. This speculation weakness appears to be particular to Intel CPUs with AMD, ARM, and others not being weak in this specific way. Across Intel processors however, this weakness is endemic stretching all the way back to when Intel first started using the "Core" branding to label processor models.

Intel was reportedly informed of this defect in their products on December 1st. The fellows who sinfully waited 90 days later before going public would like for this property of Intel's late model CPUs to be dubbed SPOILER, an all caps name that in this case is not an acronym for anything.

Indian Licenses Russian Assault Rifle For Domestic Production While US Scolds Pakistan Over Potential F-16 "Misuse"

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The two south Asian giants in a hot border dispute are enjoying very different relationships with their major foreign arms suppliers. Indian managed to sign an agreement with Russia allowing them to produce more than 700,000 AK-203 assault rifles to replace their current standard issue INSAS rifle (archived). The move is being hailed as an end to the hunt to replace INSAS which disappoints in many of the environments where India needs the rifles to be used.

Meanwhile the US State Department is investigating whether Pakistan broke a clause in their F-16 purchase agreement which supposes that Pakistan needs to ask the US for permission before deploying the fighter jets in any situation where they might be useful (archived). For this reason Pakistan is producing and deploying Chinese designed JF-17 fighters to complement/replace their US made F-16 fleet. Pakistan has already lost one of their F-16 fighters in combat against Indian MiG-21 fighters during this conflict (archived).

World's Top Bridge Player Suspended Over… Doping???

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The world's number one ranked Bridge player Geir Helgemo has been suspended from competition until November 20th after testing positive for synthetic testosterone and clomifene during an event in Florida last year (archived). While this sort of doping may not appear to be very relevant to competitive play in this card game, the World Bridge Federation let itself come under the purview of the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency rules that come with trying to make a card game more Olympic. Thusly if you want to play in World Bridge Federation competition, you have to submit to drug testing like the track and field athletes.

Forbes Catches The RIPple Scam Six Years Later

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This week a Forbes "contributor" finally gave Ripple's XRP token a look and was shocked to find unbacked pump and dump monopoly money is exactly that with the entire Ripple labs business model hinging on the pump (archived). The same outlet had up through this month been treating Ripple and their XRP token as serious business (archived) despite the Ripple network being dismissed by actual cryptocurrency authorities in 2013 for its severe and inherent defects. Sorry for your loss, but what else were those six years good for anyways?

Canada Begins Process Of Extraditing Abducted Huawei CFO To US

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Canada has begun the formal extradition process to deliver abducted Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou to the US (archived). Canada abducted Meng back in December and held her though the USG did not present charges against the Huawei CFO until the end of January. The USG has made discouraging the purchase of Huawei kit a point of foreign policy pushed on foreign governments by Madame Secretary of State Mike Pompeo zherself.

USD Woes: Benjis Outnumber Singles And Almost Entirely Outside US Borders

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CNBC decided to sound the alarm over the proliferation of 100 USD notes as the dominant manifestation of the USD altcoin in physical form (archived). These notes, affectionately referred to as Benjis are the most commonly printed currency by the US and the vast majority of them, to the tune of 80% by popular citations, circulate outside US borders. CNBC reports that the US treasury indeed makes a higher profit margin selling Benjis than any other note they print, and that a whole lot of benjis ended up abroad as part of the US's ongoing southwest Asia misadventures.

CNBC also mentions former Obama treasury chief Lawrence Summer's objection to the existence of Benjis for their potential to facilitate corruption while at the same time failing to connect that to their earlier mentioning of the USG dumping pallets of fresh Benjis into southwest Asia and everywhere else the US clumsily misadventures.