Discussion
Loading...

Post

  • About
  • Code of conduct
  • Privacy
  • Users
  • Instances
  • About Bonfire
jbz
@jbz@indieweb.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago

That Time Ken Thompson Wrote a Backdoor into the C Compiler

「 he was expected like other Turing winners to write a paper that would be published in the ACM Computer Journal. What he ended up submitting was a paper about "the cutest program [he] ever wrote"-- a sneaky undetectable self-reproducing "Trojan horse" backdoor in the C compiler that would allow him to log into affected machines as any user 」

https://micahkepe.com/blog/thompson-trojan-horse/

#c #retrocomputing #backdoor

Micah's Secret Blog

That Time Ken Thompson Wrote a Backdoor into the C Compiler

When Ken Thompson won the Turing Award jointly with Dennis Ritchie for their work in UNIX, he was expected like other Turing winners to write a paper that would be published in the ACM Computer Journal. What he ended up submitting was a paper about "the cutest program [he] ever wrote"-- a sneaky undetectable self-reproducing "Trojan horse" backdoor in the C compiler that would allow him to log into affected machines as any user.
  • Copy link
  • Flag this post
  • Block
Log in

bonfire.cafe

A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate

bonfire.cafe: About · Code of conduct · Privacy · Users · Instances
Bonfire social · 1.0.0-rc.3.21 no JS en
Automatic federation enabled
  • Explore
  • About
  • Members
  • Code of Conduct
Home
Login