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From: jc@atcmpe.atcmp.nl (Jan Christiaan van Winkel)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: "Re: other ways for viral injection C"
Message-ID: <0003.9008101840.AA07688@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 9 Aug 90 04:55:07 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
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Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

lath@geocub.greco-prog.fr (Laurent Lathieyre) writes:
>I wonder if operating systems shouldn't
>preferably be delivered in source form rather than in
>compiled form...

And even that does not guard you against the virus/trojan Ken Thompson
described in his Turing award lecture.
How can you guarantee that the compiler/assembler or linker does not
insert some extra code, recognizing the fact that it is
compiling/assembling/linking the new version of the compiler, operating
system or whatever?

Therefore I do not agree with mr. Lathieyre: It is better to have one
source of your O/S. I'd rather boot off one of the suppliers disks than
off on I built myself using God knows what utilities...
JC

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   |/  \   Jan Christiaan van Winkel      Tel: +31 80 566880  jc@atcmp.nl
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