The Ken Thompson Hack

c2.com

6 pointsKitesage2 comments

All manner of controls and monitors could be secreted this way in the OSes of all the devices we all use day to day. It isn't very far fetched to suggest that the hack, in software, can create an updatable backdoor. This way every piece of software on the planet can be KTH bugged without any possibility of detection by any mortal engineer anywhere.

Man, if you weren't paranoid about security already, this will keep you up at night compiling your systems from source. If you think you have a clean compiler that is.. I think I might just wait for the non-mortal engineer to save us all.

It's really interesting to think about how impractical it would be to ensure that you can trust a piece of software. Unless you go down to the lowest levels and validate what every machine instruction is doing (which I certainly don't know how to do, nor plan on doing), you really just have to trust that it all does what you expect.

Good thing people are trustworthy, right?

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