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Sure. I don't think it's particularly likely to have been a conspiracy. Just speculating. If I were to try to put an illicit backdoor in a compiler, I would

Sure. I don't think it's particularly likely to have been a conspiracy. Just speculating. If I were to try to put an illicit backdoor in a compiler, I would try and make damned sure it's not traceable to me. It's a very subtle thing. You have to submit a patch with an improvement (or, at least, an apparent one) to the compiler, which also contains your backdoor. You have to ensure said patch doesn't immediately cause test failures in gcc, or in projects using gcc. If you can manage that, though, it'd be very difficult to prove that you were responsible, which is why I think the targeted attack is entirely plausible.

HourglassFR 6y ago
> If you can manage that, though, it'd be very difficult to prove that you were responsible, which is why I think the targeted attack is entirely plausible. So the only argument you have to suggest it might be an intentionally introduced bug is that it doesn't look like one… I understand the sentiment but this is clearly a ridiculous line of reasoning.
- moonchild 6y ago
  The patch that introduced the bug is at [1]. Does it look to you like it introduced a bug? Granted, you're not a gcc developer—neither am I—but the gcc developers didn't think so either. Bugs are accidentally introduced all the time, true. But I don't think it's fair to say that this is a ridiculous line of reasoning. 1. https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commitdiff;h=14b7950f126f84fa585e3a057940ff10d4c5b3f8;hp=1b1e13dbde7f3eef0f8356af05c5de1fb46cb31b https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commitdiff;h=14b7950f12...