Apple forgot to disable some cache debugging registers a while back which in effect was similar to something GP described, although exploitation required root privileges and would allow circumventing their in-kernel protections; protections most other systems do not have. (And they still didn't manage to achieve persistence, despite having beyond-root privileges).
> Apple forgot to disable some cache debugging registers a while back which in effect was similar to something GP described
Thank you for bringing that up. Yes, it is an excellent example that proves the existence of silicon vulnerabilities that allow privilege escalation. Who knows whether it was left there intentionally or not, and if so by whom.
I was primarily arguing that (1) the technologies of Apple PCC are useful and (2) it is _very_ unlikely that Apple PCC is a ploy by Apple, to direct attention away from backdoors in the silicon.