Scott Bennett wrote:
Do we know for certain that the feds haven't worked some deal with
the chip manufacturers? (I think it's only reasonable to operate on the
assumption that Microslop may well have made a deal with them. What I
want to know is whether uglier approaches will be used to violate federal
statute that might affect better operating systems.)
Actually a good discussion of just this recently took place on the crypto list and it basically came down to you have no way of knowing and no way to detect so just act like a magic hardware hole doesn't exist and quit worrying about it.
See the thread started here: http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@xxxxxxxxxxxx/msg09040.html