Presumably the software, the boards, connectors, antenna design, etc.

They actually make their own iron in the heart of a dying star.

They actually manufacture a synthetic star from which they gather their elements.

That is an excellent scifi plot point, I would read that book.

As a hardware founder, low quality plastic is not rocket science. On trips to China I’ve heard similar things about other companies, specifically that Foxconn makes everything it uses, including things like coolant or plastic for prototype production.

I don't think they were saying the plastic bits are rocket science, proverbally or not

Does anyone know what their chips are doing? Do you, really?

Until we have desk side silicon fabrication/placement, with accompanying tunnelling microscope features, we simply cannot trust our silicon in any way other than through utterly peaceful means, which is to say, through systems of human trustworthiness.

Technology never allows us humans to advance sufficiently well to do without it .. unless it is evenly distributed.

Right now we are all at the mercy of the masters of silicon. This is no joke!

Absolutely. We'll never be 100% free until we can fabricate computers at home, just like we can write our own software at home.

Even with desk-side silicon fabrication, one would have to hope the hardware/software with the design tools wasn’t already backdoor-ed…

Reflections on trusting trust...

You can measure input and output with commodity equipment. That will give a good, but admittedly incomplete picture of what the chips are doing.