Skimmed the article and didn't see a reference to it, you may be interested to know that our good friends and protectors at the NSA may have stumbled on to Meltdown-like issues in the mid 90s
They "secure" the country by exploiting vulnerabilities and leaving everyone else in the dark. They see the world as just a game between them and other foreign surveillance institutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerabili...