synth documentation

[Kevin Oberman]

Real programmers toggle in all programs from the switch register.

What do you mean, "Computers don't have switch registers any more"?

Kids, ask you dad or grandpa what a "switch register" is (was).

Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com
PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:29 AM, <kpneal at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 10:11:25AM +0100, John Marino wrote:
> > On 2/10/2016 10:01 AM, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> > > Hi!
> > >
> > >> I'm racking my brains and I can't find a single rational reason why
> > >> somebody would refuse the package (especially if building it on an
> Atom
> > >> is the alternative).
> > >
> > > The famous paper from Ken Thompson: Reflections on trusting trust
> > >
> > > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=358198.358210
> > >
> >
> > The source is publicly available on github.  The only way that Thompson
> > paper could apply is if a trojan is inserted at the FreeBSD package
> > builder level.
>
> Or at your local level. See below.
>
> > So I guess [A] could say FreeBSD package builder is compromised
> > (intentionally by FreeBSD project or unknown to all due a hacker).  And
> > I guess that could be possible, but the counter is: If you cant' trust
> > packages built by FreeBSD, how can you trust the FreeBSD base not to
> > have a trojan?
> >
> > Which would mean that only the people that *also* build FreeBSD from
> > source would have a leg to stand on.
> >
> > So I will concede that case: If you accept no binaries at all from
> > FreeBSD and only build base and packages from source, then you have a
> > point.  But still the response, "Then don't complain" applies.  It's a
> > conscious decision and consequences of decisions must be accepted.
>
> Well, no, actually there's no end of it.
>
> Can you trust the compiler used to compile FreeBSD from source?
>
> Can you trust your motherboard's firmware to not install patches onto
> FreeBSD after compiling from source? (This is old hat on Windows to make
> it easy for people to get the right drivers from a fresh install of
> Windows.)
>
> Can you trust the update procedure for your board's firmware?
>
> Can you trust that there isn't a trojan in your CPU's microcode?
>
> Seriously, it never ends. You just have to pick a level and say you trust
> everything below that.
> --
> Kevin P. Neal                                http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/
>
>                     "A pig's gotta fly." - Crimson Pig
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