Jester,

Hard to say what's what: As you've read, Intel either denies or minimizes the problem. And where it does acknowledge it, they speak of amending it over time (as in - 'patches' I assume.) And spreads the blame - says most all processors are vulnerable (if a vulnerability exists.)  One would expect no less of them. I think the money question, literally, is a bit like NOK - how many hardware-for-free replacements are they going to be liable for? I'm not that worried about them long-term, in the sense that customers will turn in droves to competitors. First, the horse has already left the barn. Second, when you make 90% of the most common cpus, well, for one thing no one can fill the breach, and perhaps as importantly, Intel has always been excellent at using max leverage on their customers, as in - 'you want to drop this line of products? How would you like to be last in the supply line for the next generation of chips? Think carefully, now."

I'm no lawyer, but the already-announced lawsuits would seem to me to be without substance, unless there is a 'smoking gun' of Intel knowing about this for years and failing to act. If every kind of tech requiring software was liable for every security liability, Microsoft would've been dead and gone a thousand times over. I don't see it as reasonable to have to know every vulnerabilitly that could be exploitable in a product. If I'm wrong, there's an awful lot of Internet-of-Things producers who are going to be sued into insolvency.

Am I playing 'Intel's game' - in the sense of looking for the best possible case? Of course I am. There's a lot of profit to protect here. And so far, it's done a good job of holding up under the strain. Up over 20% for the year, they can stand some heat. But not too hot. Everyone knows how deep their pockets are. OTOH, the best lawyers money can buy :-)