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This is a followup to the comments in this question. Thanks to Oddthinking for bringing up the issue.

Ken Thompson gave a famous speech upon receiving an award titled "Reflections on Trusting Trust" In the speech, he described inserting an almost impossible to detect trojan horse in the C compiler and the login command.

Although the paper is written as if the whole thing was a gedanken experiment, there is little doubt (I think) that Ken really implemented the artifact. In his own words n that paper: "I would like to present to you the cutest program I ever wrote".

Moreover, there are a lot of sources and folklore in the Internet suggesting that the thing was not only written, but also distributed. Is there any statement made by the author explicitly denying (or accepting!) that?

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    The Jargon File (not peer-reviewed and with no references) claims "Ken Thompson has since confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed. Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by someone using the login name “kt”."
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Sep 28, 2011 at 15:44
  • I should add: I am not yet convinced, but I am at least open to being convinced.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Sep 28, 2011 at 15:55
  • @Odd I've read that article before, but I thought it was a joke ...
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 28, 2011 at 15:59
  • @Odd Regarding you mind-openness: That is the way to go, of course!
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 28, 2011 at 16:01
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    I dont know there is anyway to be sure that the login hack was the Ken Thompson Code rather than someone who created something that duplicated the effects. While effectively the same thing the implications would be far worse if it were the KTC that was released.
    – Chad
    Sep 28, 2011 at 17:32

1 Answer 1

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According to Ken Thompson, he built the compiler that did this, and never distributed it.

From: Ken Thompson <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: Was compiler from "Reflections" ever built or distributed?
To: Ezra Lalonde <[email protected]>


build and not distributed.

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Ezra Lalonde <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Ken,
>
> I've seen various sources on the internet claiming that the "trojan horse"
> compiler you mentioned in your talk "Reflections on Trusting Trust" was
> actually built, and some further claiming that it was distributed.
>
> I'd like to know if these claims are valid.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> Cheers,
> Ezra Lalonde
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    I think this is an absolute and definitive answer. Congratulations for your initiative (going up to the real source)
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 29, 2011 at 22:47
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    Wow, I happily concede I was totally wrong. I love it when I am proved wrong!
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Sep 30, 2011 at 1:23
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    @ezra - If it was distributed and being exploited do you think that he would tell you? That was the whole point of his lecture.
    – Chad
    Sep 30, 2011 at 17:08
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    @Chad As with any event without known consequences, you could only speculate. That was the reason of the detailed question writing: Is there any statement made by the author explicitly denying (or accepting!) that?
    – Dr. belisarius
    Sep 30, 2011 at 18:37
  • It would be fairly trivial to implement such a thing, even if he did not write one.
    – forest
    Jan 17, 2021 at 5:42

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