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To: proxy_user; Chauncey Gardiner
You are free to compile the Linux kernel after carefully examining the code....

Be sure to carefully examine the C compiler code and make scripts beforehand, to protect against back-door insertion like the classic back-door inserted into Unix by Ken Thompson - The C compiler checked for the presence of a back door, and if the code had been removed, the compiler would re-insert the code before the compilation process (this is an over-simplification of what Ken did - It was really brilliant!)

Put simply, if you removed his back-door, the act of recompiling the code would re-insert it without you realizing it.

Mark

37 posted on 03/16/2017 11:33:55 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: MarkL

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf

Above is the “Trusting Trust” paper. He proves no code that you don’t create from scratch, including the compiler to build it, can’t be trusted. At some point, we have to use software we can not truly trust.


39 posted on 03/16/2017 12:05:12 PM PDT by Dalberg-Acton
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