Meltdown for Different Audiences

Overview

January 31, 2018 by Sage Thomas

This website analyzes how two articles from different forums can provide the reader similar and contrasting insights into a single topic, Meltdown. The articles that I am analyzing are from Tech Crunch and the original scholarly paper that detailed how Meltdown works. I will provide an analysis of the audience, content, purpose, and rhetoric used by both articles.

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Meltdown: Summarized

Meltdown is a security vulnerability that is present in most modern day computers, including laptops, desktops, servers that maintain the cloud, and some high end smartphones. The vulnerability is inside the physical architecture of the CPU which makes it especially dangerous. Windows, Linux, Android, OSX, and iOS operating systems are all affected, but luckily fixes have been made for most. It will take time for all affected systems to recieve the fixes. However, there have been no known attacks since the public announcement in January 2018.

Why it Matters

Meltdown allows an attacker to gain access to any data stored in the memory of a computer. Normally, there are security measures to make sure a program can only get data that it created in the computer's memory. Without this security, passwords and any other protected information is made vulnerable. Forums are responsible to make sure their audience is properly informed. Tech Crunch's audience is tech orientated people, but has a more popular following and must accommodate those who either don't understand or don't care for many of the details given in primary sources. They also give possible affects that the vulnerability will have beyond the plain facts given in the scholarly paper. By contrast, the scholarly paper's job is to inform people that are more interested and knowledgeable on the subject of CPUs about how Meltdown works.

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