In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Valdis.Kletni
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
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>> Requesting the source code and/or having access to it is really
>> meaningless unless you have the skill and capabilities to compile it
>> *and* use it. There is no sure way to know that the source code in your
>> left hand is what was used to compile the binary in your right hand.
>
>Even if you compile your left hand into your right hand. See Ken Thompson's
>"Reflections On Trusting Trust" (http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/). To
>complete the references, Reference 4 ("An unknown Air Force document") is
>Karger & Schell's paper on a Multics pen-test, which is available at
>http://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/classic-multics-orig.pdf
>
>Karger and Schell did a "30 years later" retrospective, also available at
>http://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/classic-multics.pdf
>
>Between the India/Huawei thing and the MS05-039 mess, this is a good time for
>everybody who hasn't read all 3 of them to read them - under 40 pages for all
>3,
>and the 24 pages of the first Karger&Schell you can probably skim.....)
>
Also bear in mind how hard it is to find a cleverly-concealed back
door. Think how hard it is for reviewers to find ordinary bugs, let
alone one that someone tried to conceal.
--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
