At 06:36 AM 8/11/03 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/32265.html

...

Wolf also said that untrustworthy hardware poses a similar threat. "Most microelectronics fabrication in the USA is rapidly moving offshore," said Wolf. "NSA is working on a Trusted Microelectronics Capability to ensure that state-of-the-art hardware devices will always be available for our most critical systems.<<

Only way they can do that is to build it themselves, from HDL to GDSII and make their own masks. You can't prove a function doesn't exist in some box otherwise, if you don't know the trigger. Kinda like a PRNG and its key.