nvidia Nvidia's new NDA requirement for early hardware states "The recipient uses confidential information exclusively for the benefit of Nvidia"

[mr moose]

But but but, I've been told Heise  are a very large, long running publication that are above question.  If they say it is true it must be true and lawyers be damned...   

[Sniperfox47]

10 hours ago, cesrai said:

 

 

My problem is that the NDA applies to everything from Nvidia and not to a specific information or a product. The NDA also doesn't have any expire-date and it contains a lot of terms that contradict journalistic principles. I have no idea what these principles are, it would've been nice if heise mentioned them. Maybe I'll write them an Email and ask what these principles are.

Why should it apply to a specific product? I mean this is communication between businesses, it's not cooler room talk. If there communicating to you something marked confidential it's probably specifically regarding a product or program, and the NDA will expire with regard to that specific piece of information as soon as the product or program launches >.>

 

And Heise is full of bullshit with regards to it going against journalistic principles. You can read up on them here: http://americanpressassociation.com/principles-of-journalism/

 

There's nothing at all in this NDA that prevents you from independently and ethically reporting on a topic. The wording is legal wording, not colloquial wording so of course if you feed it through a translator it's going to come out pretty screwy >.> They probably should have had a lawyer look over it instead of posting an attack article.

[Lathlaer]

14 minutes ago, mr moose said:

But but but, I've been told Heise  are a very large, long running publication that are above question.  If they say it is true it must be true and lawyers be damned...

What I don't understand is why they have not tried to contact NVIDIA about it in the first place? I presume that they all have some contacts to representatives from NVIDIA in order to get samples or invites to events and there have been signs that signing such NDA is often a process that involves dialogue.

 

Why not ask them first what they meant instead of getting to their own conclusion and publishing the document?

 

"Hey, we will be happy to sign this if you clarify the meaning of certain points..." would have made much more sense, I think.

[PopReference]

So is anybody in the tech press gonna tell us what the NDA was for, or are we just gonna have to trust the people that repeatedly call their fan base stupid?

 

btw: Just saying "this is a Normal thing" doesn't make it good, bad contracts can be the norm.

[Arika]

38 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

What I don't understand is why they have not tried to contact NVIDIA about it in the first place?

because outrage gets more views/clicks than facts.

 

if they had actually contacted NVidia it would not make it to headlines.

 

"NVidia provides new NDA for people to sign regarding confidential information; it's....fairly generic"

doesnt sound as good as

"NVidia are FORCING publications to only say good things about them and SILENCING bad reviews"

[Freeks]

26 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

What I don't understand is why they have not tried to contact NVIDIA about it in the first place? I presume that they all have some contacts to representatives from NVIDIA in order to get samples or invites to events and there have been signs that signing such NDA is often a process that involves dialogue.

 

Why not ask them first what they meant instead of getting to their own conclusion and publishing the document?

 

"Hey, we will be happy to sign this if you clarify the meaning of certain points..." would have made much more sense, I think.

TomsHardware (one of my sources in the first post) implied that Heise has a "history" with Nvidia. I couldn't find what they were talking about, maybe someone else is more knowledgeable in that area.

In the original thread I claim that Heise isn't above skimming on the research in favor of a flashy story. Example for that is the AMD security flaw thingy after Meltdown and Specter when they released the press release of that fake security firm without any checking. Other news outlets checked more and sounded doubt in their articles which was later confirmed.

19 minutes ago, PopReference said:

So is anybody in the tech press gonna tell us what the NDA was for, or are we just gonna have to trust the people that repeatedly call their fan base stupid?

We will find out in probably a month (that's what NDAs are for). My money is on the 1180. Leaks are all over the place

[Freeks]

51 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

They probably should have had a lawyer look over it instead of posting an attack article.

The funny part is: They claim they did ^^

Quote

Heise prüft jedes NDA genau und stimmt nur dann zu, wenn es um ein konkretes Produkt geht, ein klares und nicht allzu fernes Ablaufdatum benannt ist und der Vertragstext keine Passagen enthält, die unsere journalistische Arbeit beeinträchtigen könnten.

...

Unsere Rechtsabteilung schlug bei der Lektüre des Dokuments die Hände über den Kopf zusammen.

Translates to:

Quote

Heise scrutinizes every NDA and only agrees when it comes to a specific product, a clear and not too far-away expiration date is specified and the text of the contract contains no passages that could affect our journalistic work.

...

Our legal department clapped their hands over their heads as they read the document.

 

[PopReference]

8 minutes ago, Freeks said:

We will find out in probably a month (that's what NDAs are for). My money is on the 1180. Leaks are all over the place

But we don't know that and can't know since the info would be under NDA and the info they planned to release probably got delayed due the NDA being released. (personally I think it's a little early for Nvidia to be sampling cards to the press, I would think the chips or cards get announced first and a tech show or something)

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, PopReference said:

But we don't know that and can't know since the info would be under NDA and the info they planned to release probably got delayed due the NDA being released. (personally I think it's a little early for Nvidia to be sampling cards to the press, I would think the chips or cards get announced first and a tech show or something)

NDAs can go out weeks or months in advance but this one isn't for anything specific. It also only applies to information Nvidia directly tells them and states is confidential. The linked Gamers Nexus video is the best thing to watch about now if you want to understand more.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

oh right umm @leadeater the original thread I was referencing just got updated with those info. does this thread have a reason to exist now? ,_,

I dunno, don't make me do work .

 

Could just merge them I guess?

[Arika]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Could just merge them I guess?

no, that's illegal, you can't do that

[PopReference]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

NDAs can go out weeks or months in advance but this one isn't for anything specific. It also only applies to information Nvidia directly tells them and states is confidential. The linked Gamers Nexus video is the best thing to watch about now if you want to understand more.

I saw it and you would have to be quite innocent to be comforted by a lawyer basically stating these contracts are written this way regularly, not exactly a good thing. I remember in some videos from the YouTuber Law channel were the contracts he would write for tech/web companies would often be left very vague for the purposes of giving the company every opportunity to have a legal advantage.

 

Basically a company with a history of shady business practices sends out shady looking contracts: nothing out of the normal, but still worth being curious about. 

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Sierra Fox said:

no, that's illegal, you can't do that

Fine, I'll rebadge it under a new generation of thread with no real change but an updated name. I'll also put the threads in Crossfire for maximum performance but cap the last 2 pages to single line comments only. You'll also need to install the LTT forum driver package to unlock the full commenting features such as quoting. Then I'll put a banner message at the top of the thread requiring everyone to agree not to complain about these restrictions.

 

#EveryGPUMeme

[Castdeath97]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

(because for some reason everyone seem to love AMD)

This can be easily explained:

 

https://psychcentral.com/news/2007/12/24/why-do-we-root-for-the-underdog/1699.html

[Yamoto42]

On 6/25/2018 at 7:54 PM, djdwosk97 said:

So Nvidia just randomly tells a third party about a design flaw that it has no intention of divulging to anyone.....ummmm, what 

Actually...there is precedence for this.

I honestly forget the details, but I believe it was AMD, actually, a couple of years ago asked its reviewers to use specific settings to avoid their cards'...shall we say weaker points.

So, even if they were not to acquiesce to said request, we would effectively be disallowed from knowing the request was made in the first place.

 

On 6/25/2018 at 8:31 PM, mr moose said:

That's for confidential information supplied by Nvidia.  Flaws discovered in a product, testing results and overall performance figures are not confidential information supplied by nvidia. These can all be made public when the NDA for said product is lifted.

 

This is all set out in the 3rd paragraph.

But this NDA is not for a "said product".  Even if it were, it 'technically' does allow them to disclose known flaws in confidence, and therefore (due to the first sentence of [the first] item 3) bar the flaw form being publicly disclosed (at least by any reviewer) for the effective product lifespan.  See also:  Xanatos Gambit.

That is to say, bringing up the first example...they might actually not be able to share a card's known weak point, since that is confidential information that is not beneficial to Nvidia.

What is even more, because again, this is NOT PRODUCT SPECIFIC, it allows Nvidia to approach signers about other..propositions...under its terms.  For example...the GPP.   But remember, the GPP was made under terms that they knew might become public...and if they're willing to do that publicly...just imagine what they might be willing to try in private.

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, Yamoto42 said:

Actually...there is precedence for this.

I honestly forget the details, but I believe it was AMD, actually, a couple of years ago asked its reviewers to use specific settings to avoid their cards'...shall we say weaker points.

So, even if they were not to acquiesce to said request, we would effectively be disallowed from knowing the request was made in the first place.

 

But this NDA is not for a "said product".  Even if it were, it 'technically' does allow them to disclose known flaws in confidence, and therefore (due to the first sentence of [the first] item 3) bar the flaw form being publicly disclosed (at least by any reviewer) for the effective product lifespan.  See also:  Xanatos Gambit.

That is to say, bringing up the first example...they might actually not be able to share a card's known weak point, since that is confidential information that is not beneficial to Nvidia.

What is even more, because again, this is NOT PRODUCT SPECIFIC, it allows Nvidia to approach signers about other..propositions...under its terms.  For example...the GPP.   But remember, the GPP was made under terms that they knew might become public...and if they're willing to do that publicly...just imagine what they might be willing to try in private.

Except umm... that "flaw" becomes public domain knowledge as soon as the product launches and the cards can be tested on. Also while they can't disclose the flaw details as provided by Nvidia they can still provide their testing of said flaw as that itself is not under NDA. They can't go "The latest Nvidia cards have X problem", but they can go "Here's a bunch of testing that shows this Nvidia card has some problem. You can figure out for yourself what it is."

 

And with regards to your GPP comment that's again kinda besides the point, because again as soon as someone leaks it it's now public domain knowledge and exempt from the NDA... Did you even bother to read the NDA? It doesn't have to be made public domain information by the Disclosing Party (Nvidia). It just has to be made public domain information period, and then it's no longer covered by the NDA.

[Yamoto42]

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Except umm... that "flaw" becomes public domain knowledge as soon as the product launches and the cards can be tested on.

Good to know how much credence you give every 12 year old who claims to have 5 FPS less than <insert reviewer here> playing...what do kids play these days?

Or perhaps I should word it differently:
If this is as harmless as you believe, then anyone worth listening too should have already signed it, thereby 

 

 

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Also while they can't disclose the flaw details as provided by Nvidia they can still provide their testing of said flaw as that itself is not under NDA. They can't go "The latest Nvidia cards have X problem", but they can go "Here's a bunch of testing that shows this Nvidia card has some problem. You can figure out for yourself what it is."

And "friendly advice" on selling Intel stock from a board member a few weeks ago in no way can be construed as insider trading...no particular reason for selling...just a hunch.

That is to say it doesn't take a law degree to make an argument for intentional testing based on, and with intent to lead to exposure of, confidential data.

 

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

And with regards to your GPP comment that's again kinda besides the point, because again as soon as someone leaks it it's now public domain knowledge and exempt from the NDA.

Because if they lack the integrity to decline the initial agreement...surely we can count on them to leak it when it reaches some (as of yet undefined) goalpost.

 

Because actor A provides evidence that they lack trait B, we can depend on them them performing action C that requires trait B.

 

Your argument is inherently self contradictory.

 

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Did you even bother to read the NDA? It doesn't have to be made public domain information by the Disclosing Party (Nvidia). It just has to be made public domain information period, and then it's no longer covered by the NDA.

Yes.  you must not have read anything I put in parenthesis.  I use them rather liberally to ensure I am being as specific as possible.

 

[Sniperfox47]

4 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

Good to know how much credence you give every 12 year old who claims to have 5 FPS less than <insert reviewer here> playing...what do kids play these days?

Or perhaps I should word it differently:
If this is as harmless as you believe, then anyone worth listening too should have already signed it, thereby 

 

 

And "friendly advice" on selling Intel stock from a board member a few weeks ago in no way can be construed as insider trading...no particular reason for selling...just a hunch.

That is to say it doesn't take a law degree to make an argument for intentional testing based on, and with intent to lead to exposure of, confidential data.

 

Because if they lack the integrity to decline the initial agreement...surely we can count on them to leak it when it reaches some (as of yet undefined) goalpost.

 

Because actor A provides evidence that they lack trait B, we can depend on them them performing action C that requires trait B.

 

Your argument is inherently self contradictory.

 

Yes.  you must not have read anything I put in parenthesis.  I use them rather liberally to ensure I am being as specific as possible.

 

Dude I really don't know where you're coming from. Literally everything in this agreement is pretty standard and boilerplate as far as NDAs go. You seem to be dreaming up potential abuses with no real basis.

 

Your any testing you're doing that exposes a flaw can be pretty clearly shown to be testing done on the normal course of a review. They told you to do a test with a specific set of conditions. So you did the test in default conditions as well as that set of conditions. There was a difference. There's no "intent to reveal confidential information" there, it's just good review practice and something *every* reviewer should be doing.

 

Nobody is going to come to you and say "Oh yeah by the way we made a card that sucks at X". It'll be "uhh we'd prefer you test with these settings on please." And if they did that's something that would be uncovered over the course of a typical review by any responsible source, testing suggested parameters against default parameters.

 

Umm what? GPP leaked. These kinds of things leak. If you piss off your board partners enough *someone* is going to leak it. If you piss off journalists with your theoretical journalistic GPP(?) someone is going to leak it. The company who leaked GPP risked legal action against them doing so but it still happened. Them signing this doesn't somehow prevent them from leaking it, realistically speaking.

 

You used two sets of brackets, that's not exactly liberal. And both sets really expanded not at all on what you were already saying. Yes the reviewer cannot disclose the flaw that they're theoretically told about for a whopping 5 years... But

A) That's a totally hypothetically designed situation with no precedent in reality

B) Then you better not ever sign or agree to any legal contract because most of them have all kinds of potential negative implications

C) At the point where that became an issue there would be other legal issues at conflict with the NDA itself. Consumer protection law is a thing yo.

D) What sane company would ever do something like that which essentially sets a ticking time bomb to destroy *any* credibility or integrity they have? Maybe *maybe* if they're a small startup who's planning to cash out and disappear in a couple years, but no major company besides Apple would escape a massive shitstorm if it turned out they intentionally squelched journalists for 5 years about a known issue with their product... Nvidia may have really shitty naming scheme's and be total jackasses to the FOSS community, but they're not econonically suicidal...

[cesrai]

6 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Why should it apply to a specific product? I mean this is communication between businesses, it's not cooler room talk. If there communicating to you something marked confidential it's probably specifically regarding a product or program, and the NDA will expire with regard to that specific piece of information as soon as the product or program launches >.>

 

And Heise is full of bullshit with regards to it going against journalistic principles. You can read up on them here: http://americanpressassociation.com/principles-of-journalism/

 

There's nothing at all in this NDA that prevents you from independently and ethically reporting on a topic. The wording is legal wording, not colloquial wording so of course if you feed it through a translator it's going to come out pretty screwy >.> They probably should have had a lawyer look over it instead of posting an attack article.

After watching GNs video and reading more into it. It is practical to not having the NDA specific to one particular product. 

15 hours ago, mr moose said:

Watch the video.  it has a 5 year expiry, it's a genreic par for the course NDA, it does not contradict any journalistic principals (if such things even exist).   

You mean the video from GN right ? And apparently they do exist. 

[Yamoto42]

 

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

A) That's a totally hypothetically designed situation with no precedent in reality

Similar situation I mentioned...actually at AMD's fault.

 

But yes, it has as just as much factual basis as:

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

These kinds of things leak. If you piss off your board partners enough *someone* is going to leak it. If you piss off journalists with your theoretical journalistic GPP(?) someone is going to leak it.

I can't convert a true believer, so don't expect further responses.

But I do hope for all of our sakes you're right and there's nothing shady going on...but even if you are, because you allowed lack of transparency it's inherently impossible to ever know.

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Lathlaer said:

What I don't understand is why they have not tried to contact NVIDIA about it in the first place? I presume that they all have some contacts to representatives from NVIDIA in order to get samples or invites to events and there have been signs that signing such NDA is often a process that involves dialogue.

Because they want as many clicks as possible. Outrageous news stories gets clicks.

News websites, youtube videos, etc, do not get paid for each true story they post. They get paid each time someone gets sucked into clicking on their article.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, PopReference said:

btw: Just saying "this is a Normal thing" doesn't make it good, bad contracts can be the norm.

This is not a bad contract though.

 

 

6 hours ago, Freeks said:

TomsHardware (one of my sources in the first post) implied that Heise has a "history" with Nvidia. I couldn't find what they were talking about, maybe someone else is more knowledgeable in that area.

In the original thread I claim that Heise isn't above skimming on the research in favor of a flashy story. Example for that is the AMD security flaw thingy after Meltdown and Specter when they released the press release of that fake security firm without any checking. Other news outlets checked more and sounded doubt in their articles which was later confirmed.

Ehm... You do know that it was an actual security firm that published those flaws in the AMD platform, and the flaws were confirmed by AMD to be real. Right?

What doubts do you think were confirmed by other articles?

[Sniperfox47]

9 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

Similar situation I mentioned...actually at AMD's fault.

AMD never went "There's this problem. You're not allowed to talk about it". They simply suggested reviewers use specific settings in their tests. If they did that with this NDA in place, you would have had happen the same exact thing that did happen. Namely reviewers tested it with the settings on and off, figured out for themselves what the issue was, and publicized it. This NDA does literally nothing to prevent that. Absolutely nothing.

 

 

13 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

 

Similar situation I mentioned...actually at AMD's fault.

 

But yes, it has as just as much factual basis as:

Really? "This thing that has no precedent, would be legally questionable, and economic suicide for a company could happen" has as factual a basis as "this thing that's happened before will likely happen again?

[Freeks]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Ehm... You do know that it was an actual security firm that published those flaws in the AMD platform, and the flaws were confirmed by AMD to be real. Right?

What doubts do you think were confirmed by other articles?

Yes, the flaws are real but you need root access to exploit some of the flaws and they don't work in virtual environments what Ryzen Pro and Epic is most commonly used for. Also those are patchable and are nowhere near the impact, that Meltdown and Specter were, although CTS-Labs claimed ‘this is probably as bad as it gets in the world of security’.
They also didn't inform AMD before releasing the whitepaper and never handed in proof of viability. These are steps, reputable security researchers would do especially if they have, as they claimed, 'years of experience in the industry'.

The other part why I'm calling it a hoax is Viceroy Research and their perfectly timed PR-releases that told the world, that AMDs new CPU lineup is flawed and unrecoverable. Viceroy Research are stock market manipulators who pulled the stunt before, latest example might be with german TV-Company Pro7 for which they are investigated.

 

tl;dr
Yes, AMD CPUs have flaws. I call the company fake (maybe a bit harsh) since they never published before, didn't use the usual ways for releasing their findings and their claims where all over the top to probably make good money on the stock market or were paid by someone who wanted to make good money on the stock market (Viceroy Research).
The Security firm is shady as is all the press-content that came with the release, which a lot of news outlets (like Heise) just re-released without checking.

 

Sources:
https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/3260-assassination-attempt-on-amd-by-viceroy-research-cts-labs
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12536/our-interesting-call-with-cts-labs
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/266046-amd-responds-cts-labs-security-allegations-resolutions-incoming
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-prosieben-media-accounts/munich-prosecutor-investigating-possible-manipulation-of-prosieben-shares-idUKKCN1GR169

[PopReference]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This is not a bad contract though.

Bad relatively I'm sure this is a good contract for Nvidia. Do you have a different idea of how it's good?

[79wjd]

41 minutes ago, PopReference said:

Bad relatively I'm sure this is a good contract for Nvidia. Do you have a different idea of how it's good?

'Don't divulge confidential information that WE give you until we give you permission or until 5 years have elapsed, whichever comes first." 

 

What part of that is bad?