IBM Struggling to Deliver Meltdown/Spectre Patches

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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According to internal papers that The Register has seen IBM is having big trouble delivering Meltdown/Spectre patches to their customers. Evidently they haven't been able to set up processes to respond to issues after patching and are writing an Excel spreadsheet to track actions taken. I feel sorry for IBM customers if all of this is true. A once proud company is a shell of its former self.

The documents also report that patches for the twin CPU bugs are failing on Windows due to interactions with antivirus tools. That’s a known issue others have encountered. The documents also say some Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers aren’t rebooting after patching, which is of more concern given that Red Hat developed its own Meltdown/Spectre patches.
 
Nukester said:
Sad as hell! The people who make the right decisions and do the work get nothing, the people who make the shitty decisions get the bonuses. iBM, Equifax, list goes on.
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This system is free falling already - it's a long way down and we will hit the floor pretty hard one day. After that day, money means nothing anymore anyway and we will have to stand up again and make it better, those who survive.

Corruption, Lobbyismus and alike have long since taken over. Some still believe it will get better one day, I do not. Our Greed is our doom.

This planet has an abundance of everything for every creature but for human greed it wasn't prepared ;(
 
I've been trying to find out of the Datapower Appliances have a patch available to address this Specter/Meltdown vulnerability, or if they are even vulnerable. Crickets.
 
I did some onsite warranty work on IBM systems years ago through the company I was working for at the time.

My take away from that experience was this.

1. IBM is a horrible company and their contract terms for service are horrible IF you are the company doing the repairs for them.
2. IBM customers are horrible - Even if you are 3-4 hours away from the site, they expect you to be there withing a 15-30 minute window or else they throw a hissy-fit.
3. IBM doesn't know how to provide the correct parts and/or documentation or give valid descriptions of the issues on the work orders.
4. Calling IBM in order to be able to get information you need to do the repairs is like trying to find a piece of hay in a mountain of needles.

We soon dropped the IBM contract because it was such a huge pain to do work for them.

This was over 10 years ago. It surprises me not one bit that they are having problems with a patch for these problems.
 
One of my favorite Bill Gates comments was "I wish IBM would buy all our competitors"
 
Worked with IBM about 22 years ago on a PC refresh that was part of a new outsourcing agreement the company I was working for had signed. IBM's team could fuck up a wet dream. A couple field managers showed up to run the project and sourced all the actual labor from a temp service. The results were both predictable and would have been amusing if I was not forced to work on the project with them. They were attempting to copy Win 3.1 files and settings to new hardware running 3.1 and Win95. One of the temps carted a 3270 terminal down to the "lab" to be upgraded. He didn't much success getting any data off of it. One of the female temps actually had some knowledge and aptitude and could actually do the work. IBM made her the "lab manager" in charge of a rotating crop of about 15 untrained monkeys. Took me 3 solid months to land a good enough position with another company to get out from under it.
 
BitMaster said:
This system is free falling already - it's a long way down and we will hit the floor pretty hard one day. After that day, money means nothing anymore anyway and we will have to stand up again and make it better, those who survive.

Corruption, Lobbyismus and alike have long since taken over. Some still believe it will get better one day, I do not. Our Greed is our doom.

This planet has an abundance of everything for every creature but for human greed it wasn't prepared ;(
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Yeah. I "MOSTLY" agree with you there. But I have to admit, I work hard to play hard and get the toys I like. I don't agree with "even the playing field" mentality, it will only mean I work harder and am smarter, to cover for those that don't and aren't. We get penalized. Double edged sword.
 
This is sort of interesting in that I've read articles in the last year or so about IBM trying to get cozy with Apple again and also looking into AMD as a supplier. Both of the stories I read were light on info so I'm not sure what ever became of it. Considering these issues, switching to AMD could help for future growth.
 
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