&quot;But it still requires the customer to have faith in source code they can not themselves see.&quot; (pnathan)<p>&quot;4. Low-level, simple, modular code mapping to that.<p>5. Source-to-object code verification or ability to generate from source on-site.&quot; (me)<p>Seriously, did someone hack my comment where it doesn&#x27;t show that on everyone else&#x27;s end or did they hack my system where 4 and 5 are only visible to me? Shit! Here I was using OSS, reviewed, well-maintained software specifically to reduce the odds of that. I&#x27;m blaming Arclisp: must have called a C function or something.<p>&quot;You&#x27;re not wrong that a correct process dramatically limits classes of issues (I&#x27;ve worked in a very high ceremony requirements-tracability shop).&quot;<p>Well, there we go. Least you saw that and have experienced that assurance activities can increase assurance. Now we&#x27;re getting somewhere.<p>&quot;Again, this is about faith. I&#x27;d like to avoid having it when it comes to security.&quot;<p>You&#x27;re probably going to have it anyway unless you specifically verified the software, libraries, compiler, linker, build system, and all while producing it from a compiler you wrote from scratch. Nonetheless, open-source can increase trust but I say closed can be more trustworthy. Not is or even on average but can be.<p>Here&#x27;s my essay that claims and supports that the real factors that are important are the <i>review</i>, the trustworthiness of the <i>reviewers</i>, and verification you&#x27;re using what they reviewed. I&#x27;d like your thoughts on it as I see where you&#x27;re coming from and like the faith angle. Faith in the integrity of the process and reviewers are the two things I identified as core to security assurance. So, I broke it down to give us a start on that.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;friday_squid_bl_424.html#c6051639" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.schneier.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;friday_squid_...</a><p>Note: I have stuff for other aspects like compilers, dev process, HW, etc. I&#x27;m just holding off to focus on the source aspect here.