[Cryptech Tech] design software

[Peter Gutmann]

Jacob <jacob at edamaker.com> writes:

>4. There are conversion utilities to convert from one format to another. Some
>converters are integrated within the specific target system, some are open
>source, some are commercial.

Just an additional note for this, there is one universal format that
everything (meaning every OS) can read and everyone can audit: PDF.  Print the
Verilog, the circuit diagrams, and the PCB layout, to PDF and anyone can audit
it.  Quite a number of hardware projects that publish the equivalent of source
code for the hardware do it this way.

When I audit my own code, I don't sit down in front of an editor, I take a
printout, go somewhere comfortable, and annotate it with a pen.  That's
because it's both a lot nicer to do it that way, and because I'm then not
tempted to start hacking around with the code as soon as I see something that
could be improved.  In fact I'd never audit in front of a keyboard and
monitor, I want to focus entirely on reading and understanding the code, not
on doing anything else (editing the code, checking email, whatever).

So providing PDFs should satisfy auditability requirements, and then anyone
who really wants to go all the way down to the bits on the wire will
presumably have the ability to interpret the files containing the bits 
appropriately.

Peter.