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A comment on Second Swiss firm allegedly sold encrypted spying devices. Parent comment

Re:Second Swiss firm allegedly sold encrypted spying devices by disown on Sunday November 29, 2020 @12:27AM (#25243129)
> We need a way to manufacture our own hardware. Just like we can already write our own software.

We may write code but we didn't write the compiler which compiles the code. We didn't develop the runtimes, kernels, etc our software is dependent upon. The security, reliability and trustworthiness of the entire software world is dependent on trust.

You should read Ken Thompson's article on "Reflections on Trusting Trust"

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/358198.358210

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Re:Second Swiss firm allegedly sold encrypted spying devices by fsflover on Sunday November 29, 2020 @03:51AM (#25243886)
It still can be detected if you have two identical compilers with and without the backdoor. So we should collect all versions.
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Re:Second Swiss firm allegedly sold encrypted spying devices by saalweachter on Sunday November 29, 2020 @08:43AM (#25245062)
Also, unless your compiler back door is functionally an AI, sufficiently large changes to the software will break its backdoor inserting routines.
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