Which was a similar sort of bug in AMD Zen 2 processors. Well, if you’re a regular Naked Security podcast listener, you’ll know that we touched on Zenbleed just a couple of short weeks ago, didn’t we? Tell me if that sounds familiar, that some sort of optimisation feature in a processor is causing cybersecurity problems.ĭUCK. This one is called Downfall, and is caused by memory optimisation features in Intel processors. This is three weeks in a row now, so we’ve got a good streak going! This is another Bug With An Impressive Name, or BWAIN as we like to call them. All right, well, let’s talk about our new BWAIN. It could do arithmetic with 18 significant decimal digits of precision.Ĭontemporary 64-bit IEEE floating-point numbers only have 53 binary digits of precision, which is just under 16 decimal digits.ĭOUG. I should have also mentioned that, although it was obsolete the moment it hit the floor, it was an important moment in computing history, so let’s not discount it. Like the ENIAC computer (which came out in, what, 1946, and did use valves)… both those computers were in a little bit of an evolutionary dead-end, in that they worked in decimal, not in binary.ĭOUG. It’s Art Deco… if you go to Wikipedia, there are some really high-quality pics of it. It is a thing of absolute beauty, isn’t it? So we did get the Mark I, and I guess it was the last mainstream digital computer that had a driveshaft, Doug, operated by an electrical motor. It will work, and the reason I know that is I did it.”ĭUCK. The guy who designed the Colossus computers for Bletchley Park in the UK was sworn to silence, and he wasn’t allowed to tell anybody after the war, “Yes, you *can* make a computer out of valves. So there was still that feeling that maybe there was time and space for electromagnetic relays. Would they be reliable enough, even though they’re loads and loads faster than relays (thousands of times faster in switching)?

…of course, American computer designers at that time didn’t know that the British had already successfully built high performance digital electronic computers using thermionic valves, or vacuum tubes.Īnd they were sworn to secrecy after the war (for reasons we didn’t understand last time we spoke about it!), so there was still this feeling in the States that valve or tube computers could be more trouble than they were worth.īecause thermionic valves run really hot they’re quite large they require large amounts of power.

Yes, it was done towards the tail end of the Second World War… You may better know this machine as the Mark I, which was a Frankenputer of sorts that mixed punch cards with electromechanical components and measured 51 feet long by 8 feet high, or roughly 15.5 metres by 2.5 metres.Īnd, Paul, the computer itself was almost obsolete before they got all the shrink-wrap off of it.ĭUCK.

This week, on 07 August 1944, IBM presented the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator to Harvard University. But first, let’s start with Tech History. …hang in there, because it is exciting, if mildly alarming!ĭOUG. I know what’s coming at the end of the podcast, and all I’m saying is… Paul, a very happy day to you, my friend. Crocodilian cryptocrime, the BWAIN streak continues, and a reason to learn to touch-type.Īll that, and more, on the Naked Security podcast.

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