It's not the identity of the agency that makes the argument so slippery!
replyDo you seriously think that the average Joe is able to find a backdoor, planted by anyone, in a piece of software they aren't familiar with?
replyBecause that what quite literally the claim I was arguing with in the first place.
I don't really agree with much of anything you've said in this thread, but the only thing I'm pointing out here is that your argument has shifted and is chugging heartily towards non-falsifiability.
replyNo the argument hasn't shifted. The core point is that any time you use a piece of software, you have to have some level of trust towards the entity that gave you the said piece of software.
replyThe way I responded to one particular example “what if I download Signal and compile it myself” is just that a particular example, not a shift in argument.
If you think there's no trust assumption in the distribution of software, feel free to provide actual arguments to refute that argument of mine, because so far your comments have been disappointingly lacking in substance.