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Why the Sun 2 has a message “Love your country, but never trust its government”

(nohats.ca)
266 points longwave | 1 comments | 25 Jan 16 11:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.435s | source
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lultimouomo ◴[25 Jan 16 11:49 UTC] No.10966653[source]▶
I wonder if this trap street message, which was inserted in some code initializing a DES chip, was chosen because it was rumored that NSA had backdoored DES. The article doesn't mention it, but it would be quite a coincidental choice!
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tptacek ◴[25 Jan 16 13:07 UTC] No.10966929[source]▶
The entire article explains what the string is doing there. You don't have to speculate.
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lultimouomo ◴[25 Jan 16 13:33 UTC] No.10967046[source]▶
The article explains that the message is a trap street; it says that Gilmore had read it and noted it years before and at he "plucked it" as the secret message.

I can't seem to find in the article the reason he plucked just that message, and why he stuffed it in the DEC routine.

Am I missing something?

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1. DonHopkins ◴[25 Jan 16 14:35 UTC] No.10967341[source]▶
Yes, the message is totally in keeping with John's character. "Contributed to lively corporate culture" is one way of putting it! ;)

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http://www.toad.com/gnu/

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Sun is a computer manufacturer, long a leader in the technical workstation and database markets. Many Web pages are served from a Sun server. Sun is now a multi-billion-dollar company; working there made me financially independent. It was acquired by Oracle in 2010. I was its fifth employee, and later a consultant. I handled architecture, design, implementation, and debugging of Sun Workstations. Wrote and maintained bootstrap and diagnostic ROMs for the Sun-1, Sun-2, and Sun-3. Debugged first prototypes of Sun-1 and Sun-2, working with the hardware designer. Worked on first bringup ever of Unix on Motorola 68010 and 68020. Designed and diagnosed the chip designs for the SPARCstation-1 and SPARCstation-2. Straddled the hardware and software camps to locate, explain, and solve design, implementation, and manufacturing problems. Pulled many chestnuts out of fires. Debugged Unix utilities, kernel, device drivers, and CAD software. Diagnostics. Documentation. Electronic mail maintenance, support, and enhancement. Performance and code generation improvement. General technical support. Network relations. Contributed to lively corporate culture.