DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - The Ring 0 Facade Awakening the Processors Inner Demons
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters call his x86 internals talks spectacular and mention them whenever low-level processor surprises come up.
What it is
Christopher Domas's DEF CON 26 talk on secret processor registers that vendors reserve for third parties holding trusted keys. He examines how users are locked out of parts of their own CPUs.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2019 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec daniel-thompson · 2021-08 · on “Compiling C Programs Into “Mov” Instructions (And Only “Mov” Instructions)”
These links don't work for me, but the videos are on YT: - [LINK] - [this video] And yes, they are spectacular.
Strong rec aecsocket · 2026-08 · on “Spaghettifying DRAM”
Holy shit, Christopher Domas is back. I remember watching his Defcon talks on x86 shenanigans[^1][^2] and being amazed at what he's been able to discover. Then he got whisked away by Intel and now drops this. I'm excited. [^1]: [this video] [^2]: [LINK]
Cites kbenson · 2019-06 · on “Everybody Be Cool, This Is a Robbery”
While somewhat interesting, I'm not sure there's much to discuss unless the presentation or details are already available. Interestingly, this reminds me of two Defcon talks I watched in the last day or two, which also cover vulnerability through additional processors onboard.[1][2] 1: [LINK] 2: [this video]