You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
"Reflections on Trusting Trust", 1983 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 27 (8), August 1984, pp. 761-763.
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You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.

— Ken Thompson

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code." in the context of ""Reflections on Trusting Trust", 1983 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 27 (8), August 1984, pp. 761-763." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Ken Thompson" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Ken Thompson#code#verification#sourcelevel#especially#companies#untrusted#yourself#scrutiny#totally#protect#create
Ken Thompson

About Ken Thompson

Kenneth Lane Thompson (born 4 February 1943) is a computer scientist and winner of the 1983 Turing Award, together with Dennis Ritchie. He is notable for his work on the Unix operating system.