Logen Kain on Nostr: You really can't. An old example: A c compiler compiles its own code. The compiler ...

You really can't.

An old example:

A c compiler compiles its own code.

The compiler can compile itself.

So the compiler compiled a version of itself with nefarious code.

This new version of the compiler compiles new code for the next version of the compiler. Code that doesn't have the actual hacked code in it, but does call it.

You now have clean source code that's open. But a corrupted compiler.

This kind of attack is crazy hard to uncover.

So the only real way to be fully convinced its safe, is to see the code before any compiled software is involved. Cuz any compiled software could be corrupted to inject things during compalation of otherwise clean source.

So yea, it's a big problem. And that's not even getting into all the code at the hardware level that could be doing things.