If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library.
Peter SingerRead
No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.
Interpretation
What this quote means
One must be cautious with external code as no verification can guarantee its trustworthiness.
Ken Thompson highlights the inherent risks associated with using third-party code, suggesting that despite thorough checks and validations, external code can still harbor vulnerabilities or malicious intentions. This serves as a cautionary reminder for programmers and developers to approach untrusted code with vigilance and skepticism, understanding that verification alone is not foolproof protection.
Themes
CodeTrustSecurityVerificationProgrammingRisk
In practice
Example use cases
In a tech conference presentation discussing the importance of code security, this quote can illustrate the risks of adopting external libraries.
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