gss44
I'm well aware of the program you're refering to. Have you seen some of the unit costs? That doesn't even include operating costs. The US is already near-bankrupt! Intercepting shipments with look-alike models doesn't really scale to mass surveillance, which is kind of a key point.
He knows exactly what he's doing when he takes a hard line. Being weak-spirited and compromising isn't a very good way to get noticed.
Stating that "...you'd still need to inspect the hardware/software as shipped..." seems to suggest that it's necessary to check each and every unit of a given design. I was just addressing that part of the parent comment directly, along with it's general bias towards what can't be done as opposed to what can.
I wasn't trying to suggest that open codebases are a silver bullet -- but you can improve something without having a complete and comprehensive solution.
Also, just transitioning to a more open process with an open codebase has the effect of "keeping them honest". Once the code is out there, they have no way of knowing who might be scrutinizing it and have no chance to retroactively cover something up.
This is why it's such a big deal when companies make a commitment to openness (the real kind -- not the buzzword kind). It's a statement of being willing to forego most of the dirty tactics that being closed source allows and to playing a fair(er) game.
Of course not. Just a small handful of people would have to scrutinize it and keep up a credible threat of catching out any skullduggery. These things are mass produced. The efficiency benefits of design-once/copy-many also translate into audit-once/benefit-many.