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Apple, ARM & Intel facing potential Israeli class action suit over Meltdown & Spectre

Israeli plaintiffs are seeking to file a class action lawsuit against Apple, ARM, and Intel over the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities recently uncovered in Intel and ARM-based processors.

The filing was made through the Haifa District Court, and includes both computer and cellphone owners in the affected class, Hamodia said on Sunday. The court is due to issue a ruling on the matter in the next several weeks.

"Our worst nightmares have come to pass, and a giant tech bubble has burst," wrote an attorney for the plaintiffs, Rimon Zinati. "That this is an earthquake is an understatement. Since the announcement by the companies of the vulnerabilities of their products, we realize that we are living in a fantasy world and now realize that we do not even have a minimum of privacy."

Should it be green-lit by a judicial review in a few weeks, the Israeli suit will add to a growing number of legal challenges related to Meltdown and Spectre. Intel in particular has known about the problems for months, but only confirmed them recently.

Apple and Intel have distributed some software fixes, but the vulnerabilities still haven't been completely resolved. In theory, a knowledgeable hacker could use Meltdown or Spectre to access restricted memory.



32 Comments

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

WTF? Why Apple and not other hardware manufacturers? Why not HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Dell, Microsoft, Google? Why only Apple? This whole article makes it sound like Apple is the only hardware company besides Intel and ARM that is liable for this. I might be labeled a fanboy on this site but this is bullshit.

rotateleftbyte 12 Years · 1630 comments

lkrupp said:
WTF? Why Apple and not other hardware manufacturers? Why not HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Dell, Microsoft, Google? Why only Apple? This whole article makes it sound like Apple is the only hardware company besides Intel and ARM that is liable for this. I might be labeled a fanboy on this site but this is bullshit.

Who has the biggest pockets?
Who gets the most publicity when a lawsuit is filed against them?

You can guess the answer.

Soli 9 Years · 9981 comments

lkrupp said:
WTF? Why Apple and not other hardware manufacturers? Why not HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Dell, Microsoft, Google? Why only Apple? This whole article makes it sound like Apple is the only hardware company besides Intel and ARM that is liable for this. I might be labeled a fanboy on this site but this is bullshit.

These lawsuits are bullshit, but in this case Apple does design their own processors, which does put them closer to this issue than other vendors you mentioned.

fotoformat 13 Years · 302 comments

#Quote...
"Our worst nightmares have come to pass, and a giant tech bubble has burst," wrote an attorney for the plaintiffs, Rimon Zinati. "That this is an earthquake is an understatement. Since the announcement by the companies of the vulnerabilities of their products, we realize that we are living in a fantasy world and now realize that we do not even have a minimum of privacy."

I wonder if this attorney also has a sideline job as a movie scriptwriter?

ericthehalfbee 13 Years · 4489 comments

What’s next?

Class action lawsuits against Microsoft or Apple whenever a security exploit is discovered in their OS?

The only absolute with regards to computers (software & hardware) is there will always be bugs/exploits. You simply cannot design something that will be 100% free from any bugs. All you can do is put in an effort to minimize these from happening, and WHEN they happen provide a quick response to deal with the issue.