But is wanting to know what my processor is doing, or wanting it to be free of undocumented, obfuscated, proprietary code that runs at a higher priority than any software, really that extreme a view?
We base so much of human progress on these little wafers of silicon, it shouldn't be extreme to want to know what they do.
Well said. I'll add that security is a threshold, and that computer systems are extremely complex. Every bit of openness -and the verifiability such openness affords- brings us closer to that ideal secure system.
Agreed, but for critical applications it might be appropriate.
> If your security demands are that high I'm sure you will find even nowadays CPUs which are in that level of "trustworthyness" you want. One funny example: You can use a Raspberry Pi which is not affected by Meltdown or Spectre ;)
Having the level of verificability the parent asks for is a lot more than "not affected by Spectre", and the Raspberry Pi is not very open in that regard.