Alessandro Selli writes:
> What makes you think IBM is more trustable than Intel? Who, other than
> IBM, produces Power8 CPUs? Are the blueprints publicly available?

You're just raising the bar to the point where noone can possibly build an
acceptable product. (Not just you, Alessandro, most people who post to this
thread.)

Suppose the blueprints are available. Then you could scrutinise them. But
how big is the chance that you would notice a single gate out of place? Or
worse, a single gate that has a legitimate purpose but could be subverted
by a fab-time attacker?

We already know that a single-gate attack is possible: "In this paper, we
show how a fabrication-time attacker can leverage analog circuits to create
a hardware attack that is small (i.e., requires as little as one gate) and
stealthy (i.e., requires an unlikely trigger sequence before effecting a
chip’s functionality)." Google and read it if you want, the paper makes for
sad reading. Or you can make a decision about what to guard against and
stop worrying about the rest.

Arnt