The open-source approach is our own chance to purge corruption in the technology layer. We may not yet have implemented the idea perfectly, but keep in mind the following:

With every new player (government, company, user) joining the open-source approach, we get additional eyes on the code/hardware.

Imagine all world governments using only open-source code/hardware: Given the current budgets at play, we would have 100% secure code/hardware in a matter of seconds - for everybody on the Planet.

Why is this not happening? Because governments (currently) still do not fully represent the citizens' interests. They mainly represent their interests first (which is the protection and expansion of their power monopoly). This is called the principal-agent problem.

Let's suppose that hardware is open-source. How do I know that my instance of the hardware is faithful to the spec? That my vendor didn't modify the hardware?

Let's suppose that I have a 3D printer sophisticated enough to print open-source circuitboards. How do I trust my 3d printer?

I think there's a hardware "trusting trust" problem; I can't imagine how your optimism could ever be realized. I hope I'm missing something!

I think the parent doesn't mean that open source will cure all problems but that it will move the bar higher for malicious players. If the designs were published and it'd be possible for anyone to review and build such a thing then it's exponentially harder to hide something.

You're not missing anything, it's just that with each added "hop" it becomes harder to implement a backdoor and have it undetected.

Your futuristic 3D printer could be backdoored to recognize certain patterns and modify them sneakily but that would be pretty sophisticated and somebody validating thoroughly the output could detect the unexpected divergence. Designing a generic backdoor that would work on any CPU design without being obvious sounds very tricky indeed.

It would also be very difficult to hide the code generating the backdoor if the software of the printer is open source itself. Then you'd have to insert inconspicuous code in the printer's driver which would have the very complex task of messing with the model to insert a backdoor in an arbitrary user-controlled design.

There will always be trust related issues, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt improve overall situation. Currently its possible there are all kind of backdoors in: hardware itself, firmware, drivers, some of closed source software. If we would limit it only to hardware itself that would be huge win.

I am not sure if you understand the complexity of validating crypto or finding backdoors in software. It is possible to find bugs in closed source software and as the link I provided proves it is possible to "hide" backdoors in open source software.

100% secure? You must be joking. Since there is no code without bugs and certain percentage of bugs have security implications there is no 100% secure.

Yeah but at least you have a chance to find the backdoors.

It is possible find backdoors in closed source software. Check the Cisco story.

Yeah but at least you have a better chance to find the backdoors. ;-)

If it's not open it's even less likely to be found in the first place. Do you have other options?

How many people were capable of spotting a backdoor in the standard[1]? Do you think that an average person can just look at a source code and spot any backdoor or security bug?

1. https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/09/15-sh...

Doesn't have to be manual, despite kids being taught programming within the next generation.

Automated fuzzing is a solution amongst others.

It does not have to be the average person. If it's open and if there is enough interest in the community, organizations can contract security professionals to audit the code. This has been done for several crypto projects even in recent history.

Did they ever find backdoors, or are they still pure speculation?