This reminded me of the famous lecture by Ken Thompson, Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf http

This reminded me of the famous lecture by Ken Thompson, Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp... Basically you have to trust the compiler because it compiles all code on your system, including itself. Not entirely the same, and I think the Intel trick is more nefarious.