Ken Thompson's Turing Award Lecture: The Self-Reproducing Compiler Backdoor
By
thunderbong
A baker's-dozen of insight crammed into one ring.
Summary
The article recounts the story of Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture where he revealed a clever, self-reproducing backdoor he had built into the C compiler. Instead of writing a conventional paper about UNIX, Thompson described how he created a "Trojan horse" that would automatically insert a login backdoor into the UNIX login command when compiled, and more importantly, would also insert itself into future versions of the compiler, making it nearly impossible to detect. This demonstration highlighted fundamental issues in computer security and trust in software tools.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledthe cutest program [he] ever wrote
a sneaky undetectable self-reproducing 'Trojan horse' backdoor in the C compiler
would allow him to log into affected machines as any user
Thompson didn't want to write about the usual things that Turing award winners write about
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