full-disclosure - Re: Gödel and kernel backdoors

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Message-ID: <20100919180120.2F0C.0@paddy.troja.mff.cuni.cz>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2010 18:21:35 +0200 (CEST)
From: Pavel Kankovsky <peak@...o.troja.mff.cuni.cz>
To: Georgi Guninski <guninski@...inski.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: Gödel and kernel backdoors

On Sat, 18 Sep 2010, Georgi Guninski wrote:

> Another result that derives from Gödel's ideas is the demonstration that
> no program that does not alter a computer's operating system can detect
> all programs that do.

What is impossible is reliable and perfect discrimination between "good"
and "bad" programs for any nontrivial definition of "good" and "bad"
(this follows from Rice's theorem).

On the other hand, It is possible to "detect all bad programs" if it is
allowed to err on the safe side and mistake some good programs for bad
programs. An extreme example is to call all programs bad unless their
exact code appears on the list of known good programs.

-- 
Pavel Kankovsky aka Peak                          / Jeremiah 9:21        \
"For death is come up into our MS Windows(tm)..." \ 21st century edition /

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