Jim Bell and I commented some time ago on this dilemma. One obvious
   solution is "table top" manufacture of VLSI.
   As crazy as it sounds, for at least prototyping and small (CPunk) PoC
   projects, its possible to fab a wide variety of chips, with impressive
   feature sizes, implantation, doping, etc. using Electron Beam
   Lithography. EBL is basically operating an electron microscope in
   reverse. Because it uses electrons to illuminate the substrate vs.
   photons it doesn't require any litho masks. The beams can directly
   write to the surfaces and with the appropriate techniques expose
   chemicals that create the "resists" of typical litho methods. Best of
   all, electron beams can be brought to a sharper focus than even deep UV
   meaning small feature size capabilities.
   The main reason EBL is only a tech oddity is its inability to be used
   for volume manufacture. Maybe someone in this field will do an ICO. EBL
   can potentially be operated by a much smaller staff (maybe a competent
   enough individual) than even the smallest conventional fab. With at
   least small scale manufacture and some careful design attention I think
   the list price on a rig could be < $100k USD.
   Steve

   On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 11:33 PM, grarpamp <[1]grarpamp@gmail.com>
   wrote:

     On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 1:53 AM, Ryan Carboni <[2]ryacko@gmail.com>
     wrote:
     > In the end, you can only trust something you can understand,
     otherwise you
     > are trusting the word of someone else.
     While ultimately true, it is certainly possible to create a far more
     trustable model than the totally blind "We are the corp / gov
     (or any other closed source single point opaque authority,
     trade secret IPR, NDA), *You can trust us*" that idiots happily
     accept today.
     > the original computers used relays, switches, and wires to be
     programmed.
     There can be parallel lines of open inspection and cross
     certification of fully open ground up rebuilds all the way
     to current HW and SW products... ie: Processor, OS.
     The rebuild path, both of tooling itself and product, from relays
     to vacuum tubes to silicon to gigagate masks is already known
     form history, thus requires zero research.
     The research is in how to do the rebuild under a model that
     imparts explicit open reliable reviewable documented n-man
     rule realtime operating and historical chain of reasonably
     bulletproof trust.
     #OpenFabs, #OpenHW, #OpenSW
     Such a project could be seeded and continuously funded by
     #CryptoCurrencies, #DAOs, #EarlyAdopters, #CypherPunks,
     and eventually, sales of product runs
     None of today's opaque HW gates are remotely trustworthy,
     any attempts to impart trust to them are no more than foolish
     speculation.

   --
   Creator of the Warrant Canary and the Street Performer Protocol. Wi-Fi
   standard spec. creation participant and co-developer of eCache.
   Director at MojoNation and Cylink. Founding member of IFCA and GNU
   Radio.
   Shameless self-promoter :)

References

   1. mailto:grarpamp@gmail.com
   2. mailto:ryacko@gmail.com