linux-kernel - RE: [RFC PATCH 3/3] x86/microcode: Taint and warn on late loading

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Message-ID: <c40151ec88db4b7aa7dcadf6428b019e@intel.com>
Date:   Wed, 25 May 2022 15:40:50 +0000
From:   "Luck, Tony" <tony.luck@...el.com>
To:     Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
CC:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: [RFC PATCH 3/3] x86/microcode: Taint and warn on late loading

> Yes, they can be as many as there are letters in the english alphabet,
> it seems:
>
> struct taint_flag {
>        char c_true;    /* character printed when tainted */
>	^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> and there are already
>
> #define TAINT_FLAGS_COUNT               18

That's very 1990's thinking. We have Unicode available now.
We could start using Emoji like U+1F4A9 as a taint character :-) 

> Look at the other taint flags - they're set in a bunch of different
> places so it is hard to unambiguously decide where the taint was set. If
> we wanna use it for debugging, then the taint_flag struct above should
> probably save the caller address which set the taint... or something to
> that effect.

That sounds better than a string of Emoji (also better than the current
string of upper case characters).

-Tony