I was seeing claims of a firm having a 'short' interest in AMD and thus they were trying to sandbag the stock[1]. Sounds like this security firm might be more of an investment firm just trying to push a stock a certain way?
Somebody in another thread pointed out that much of the security community laughs at Linus. That says less about him than about their own insularity and inflated sense of self-importance. Attempts to defend CTS only show that his reciprocal contempt for them is well deserved. When members of a community act in stupid or toxic ways, it's very important for other members of that community to be first to censure them, lest they lose their own credibility.
> Attempts to defend CTS only show that his reciprocal contempt for them is well deserved.
What attempts are these? I honestly haven't seen many people defending them. The few people I know of that are associated with the security industry here don't seem to have a high opinion of this whole endeavor.
That's interesting, as he's one of the people I was talking about.
I went over the announcement comments from the other day[1] for his stance, and I think you're mostly seeing what commonly happens with tptacek's comments, in that he a) tries to make a nuanced opinion about a specific aspect of what's being discusses, b) people interpret it as an overall statement about the (or one of, or multiple) of the topics being discussed, c) the argument getting really into the weeds, and d) him occasionally getting short or annoyed with people he's arguing with, likely because after a chain of him repeating himself for 5 plus comments people are still ignoring the nuanced point he's trying to make.
That may be interpreted as a blanket defense of him, but it's not meant that way. It is what I see quite often in the comments with him though, I think mostly because he's willing to wade in and try to make a specific nuanced point on what many people feel are contentious topics. He's not always right, and sometimes his authoritative way of stating things may work against him.
In this specific case, he spent a lot of time arguing that no time is needed before public announcement (which he has argued many times before). I agree with this in general, even if it's painful in the specific sometimes. It's like free speech, not allowing it is much worse than just dealing with the annoying times you wish people would have exercised more constraint. The alternative gets bad fast.
To point, all the comments I just read form tptacek seem to be arguing specifically that 24 hours isn't too short (as in nothing is too short, but if I understand tptacek's position from past arguments the nuance here is that he doesn't condemn them for this, even if he would prefer coordinated disclosure), and that short selling is nothing new. He does note how this is somewhat unique in how brazen it is[2]. I'm not sure his thoughts on whether they announced to media prior to AMD, and whether that's in line with what he believes.
> In light of CTS’s discoveries, the meteoric rise of AMD’s stock price now appears to be totally unjustified and entirely unsustainable.
Meteoric rise? Are we watching the same stock? AMD has been flat/trending-down the last year. They're down nearly 20% from this time last year. Sure they went from $3.00 to nearly $11.50 in 2016 leading up to the Ryzen release, but the stock has absolutely leveled off since then.
Yes, I’m aware. Are you accusing them of inserting the flaw into AMD’s microprocessor or something? What’s the crime?
It isn’t remotely illegal to find flaws in a company’s products and attempt to profit of the publication by shorting (as long you don’t have any fiduciary obligation or NDA).
As I said in the discussion the other day, noting security problems in a processor that may arise after you've flashed the bios and/or firmware with different versions is like calling out Ford for engines that fail while on the.freeway when you replace the engine control software. If tied to stock market plays, I could see a case for market manipulation.
That there might be some real flaws in play may reduce this, but not to the point it means nithing, IMO.
Not a lawyer but my understanding is that finding something legitimately wrong with a company, shorting the stock, publicizing it, and profiting is okay if you're right? The problem was they got it wrong.
There have been already quite a few people pointing out that the process you describe is legal. Yes, that might be true. People are not arguing against that.
IANAL, but it still seems as if they are attempting to manipulate the market for their personal gain, with coordinated sensationalist stories and gross exaggeration. Market manipulation is a thing and people have been sentenced for it in the past [1] (edit: just learned this is called "securities fraud" in the US?).
The widespread "It is in the rule-book so you can't call him out for it!"-attitude on hackernews, e.g. defending Shkreli (yet, he also has been found guilty of fraud - guess what: still illegal), is hideous IMO.
Now I read someone on twitter saying Intel behind this ( Jokingly I think ), I dont think Intel is stupid enough to put out such a poor form of report.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-amd/after-short-sel...