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Actually, you don't.

You can use two different compilers that compile each other to prove that the compilation won't be tampered with.

See https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/countering_tr...



What if both compilers are backdoored?

It's not like you have a large choice of good compilers for any given language/platform pair.


Schneier's summary of Wheeler's method says: "This countermeasure will only fail if both [compilers] are infected in exactly the same way. The second compiler can be malicious; it just has to be malicious in some different way: i.e., it can't have the same triggers and payloads of the first. You can greatly increase the odds that the triggers/payloads are not identical by increasing diversity: using a compiler from a different era, on a different platform, without a common heritage, transforming the code, etc."




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